


A Study in Dreaming

by savethelastslice



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dreams, Dreams and Nightmares, Dreamsharing, Mentions of alcoholism, NCTmentary!au, Sandman!AU, Sandman!Mark, human!donghyuck, mentions of child abuse, more rise of the guardians-esque sandman, not neil gaiman's sandman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-06 08:47:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 41,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20504186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savethelastslice/pseuds/savethelastslice
Summary: Mark sighed, corners of his lips curling up. Sure, every dream had its magic: the hazy projection of the dreams he gave welcomed him with long blades of green grass, pearls of morning dew still clinging on. He’d hear the roaring of the ocean as wave after wave crashed onto the dreamer’s shore. But standing on the highest floor of an apartment building and looking out at the sand-drowsed city? That was a dream in itself.In which Mark is in training to become a Sandman and Donghyuck is a boy who's never had sand dance on his eyes - and in which not all dreams are bad, but not all should be dreamt, either.Or: Mark and Donghyuck meet in dreams.





	1. Dream Lab

**Author's Note:**

> Phew finally starting to sling this thing up, first multichapter fic in forever and im quite?? excited?? after ghosting for so long here is my humble offering to the fandom
> 
> tags will be updated as we go; will (hopefully) be updated regularly, but will definitely be finished.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of alcoholism and child abuse (not explicit), later chapters will have some violence but not explicit so it's tagged as T instead of M
> 
> DISCLAIMER: this work and all concepts of Sandmen and related ideas are entirely fictional and should in no way be taken as truth.

Mark stepped out of the last apartment, tapping against the checklist on his phone.

Well. Stepped out is a relative term. ‘Used his Sandman mojo to unlock the door and soundlessly step out and lock it again’ would be more accurate.

He tucked his phone securely into the back pocket of his jeans, humming. All done for tonight.

Standing on the top floor of an apartment complex in Gangnam, Mark took a moment to lean on the corridor railings. Stars twinkling brightly greeted him, moon a lovely crescent, sky a gorgeous backdrop of deep blue. But the stars weren’t the only things that shimmered in the night air.

In every window of the apartments, houses, flats around him, a delicate wisp of golden shimmer floated lazily, the way candle smoke from birthday cakes rose into the air. To humans it’d just be empty streets. Sandmen weren’t human though. They’d see the bright yellow dust, a blanket of light and hope and dreams that hugged the world as the people lay sleeping.

Mark sighed, corners of his lips curling up. Sure, every dream had its magic: the hazy projection of the dreams he gave welcomed him with long blades of green grass, pearls of morning dew still clinging on. He’d hear the roaring of the ocean as wave after wave crashed onto the dreamer’s shore. But standing on the highest floor of an apartment building and looking out at the sand-drowsed city? That was a dream in itself.

He had just left the house of Shin Yuna. She was a spritely thing, and with the little sprinkle of sand, Mark had heard a gentle, lilting song start to play. In the space above the girl’s head Mark had seen a young woman leaning back on a great oak tree, guitar in hand. 

Mark had laughed delightedly - he used to have dreams like that, too. Music hadn’t really worked out for him, but he was grateful he at least had the chance to chase it till there had been no more road left. Maybe it’d be different for her. Whatever it was, he was content to be there at what might be the start of her road.

A buzz of static at his ear. “Mark, you good?”

“Yeah, just done for the day!” Mark held a finger against the earpiece as he sent a message to Jaehyun, his mentor. “Gonna start heading back in a while.”

“Sure. Go do your Batman routine, I’ll see you soon.”

“It’s not a Batman -” Too late, Jaehyun had hung up with a soft snicker. Mark huffed, cheeks dusted red. 

Squinting at the horizon, he wondered what other dreams his fellow Sandmen were conjuring tonight - perhaps there’d be some of summer picnics, building snowmen in the winter, lazing by the fireplace curled up with a book and hot chocolate.

Maybe right now, Kun would be reminding a college student of homemade kimchi stew, maybe Jaehyun would be weaving the sensation of soft rabbit fur under gentle fingers, maybe Johnny was back in the labs laughing to himself as he watched children run free in grassy fields on the wide screens.

Of course, there was the occasional dream that made his stomach turn, Mark recalled with a grimace. There were rules for him to follow with the images he brought to people, but once it began the rest was partially up to them.

At least he hasn’t got any as bad as that one guy Doyoung had gotten a few years back. He only heard it second-hand from Yuta but it still made him want to throw up. Mark shuddered to think about that one.

As he scanned the horizon, his eyes inevitably landed on the puddle of houses, noticeably shorter against the Gangnam high rise buildings. 

Then Mark’s eyes stopped on a particular building. He frowned.

Hurriedly, he clambered over the railings and took a cautious step out. When his food landed firmly on the thin air he pushed himself fully off the ledge, floating quickly to the mess of buildings squashed together. Despite the darkness, rust and peeling paint stood out, regions of darker spaces interrupting the smooth facade of the buildings. Mark wrinkled his nose as he got nearer. 

He landed softly in the middle of the street he’d arrived in just earlier that night. 

Around him the buildings all looked the same: familiar single storey houses made of concrete that seemed to hold its position by the simple virtue of being heavy enough to withstand the winds. Lines of washing hung from building to building, intercrossing with the network of thick black cables. The curved ridges of zinc rooftops peeked from the top of the houses. 

It should be familiar, it really should, given that he visited the place every night. He’d enter the houses by the front doors though, not this back alley. Mark stared at the door that stood before him, off-white and rust-bit on the edges.

No, what had caught his attention was the way the mist seemed to avoid the place, like it radiated some sort of forcefield that kept away the good dreams.

Maybe it was unoccupied? But no, even if there wasn’t anyone there’d at least be bugs or some stray animal, with their own little gravity. A _pushing_ force, on the other hand...

The locked door gave way easily under his hand and Mark pushed his way in, eyes wide in alert. He stopped short at the doorway in dismay.

He had seen the insides of most other houses. Most had modest belongings, none had floor strewn with shattered glass, bottles rolling everywhere. Mark felt something shiver down his spine as he stared at the few takeout containers littering the couch, suspicious dark spots that seemed stuck to the corners.

That’s when he felt it.

Most ‘life forces’, as Jaehyun liked to call it, shone like a beacon in the dark. “Kind of like the force of their yearning for good dreams,” Jaehyun had elaborated when Mark had shot him a quizzical look. 

“That’s also why we can find their bedrooms immediately,” Ten had chirped, shooting him a wink. “Saves lots of time, especially with those huge mansions and shit.”

This one though, Mark had almost missed it. A regular, weak pulse pushing against Mark’s conscious. Small, childlike. Yuna’s had shone like a bonfire, this one seemed almost like one of the stray sparks that jumped out only to be extinguished in the sand. Automatically, Mark headed towards the source.

When he got there, he didn’t know if he should feel proud or horrified that he had been right.

The room was about half the size of the living room, if it could be called one. A small desk and cupboard stood by the side. There was also a single bed by the side and on the bed lay a child. 

It was a boy, he realised first, face partially hidden with the matted locks of black hair. Possible eleven, twelve. The second thing he realised, and the only other thing he did before his vision tunneled, was that this boy was terrified.

Sleep was meant to be a restful thing. For the body to heal, the cells to repair themselves, and Mark Lee could give an entire two-hour lecture on the functions of sleep. This child gripped the thin blanket like a lifeline, face scrunched into a grimace.

Mark brought a hand to hover over the boy’s forehead, hissing when he felt the strange repulsive force that had drawn him there in the first place. Ignoring the sting, he touched the boy lightly and immediately pulled away. He was burning.

What to do with the sick? Mark stared hopelessly down. Rubbing his thumb and forefinger together over the boy’s head a few grains fell from his palm. He expected them to take root and sink under the boy’s skin, but instead they bounced off and fell away.

_He rejected it?_ Mark pulled out his phone and activated the location finder. The yellow spot on the screen blinked a few times before disappearing, and Mark was left staring at the faint white outlines of building against the green backdrop, yellow blimps surrounding him on all sides where people slept but none where he stood. 

According to the app, this place didn’t exist, and neither did this child. The icons at the top of the screen displayed a question mark over the signal bars, which meant he couldn’t rely on his phone. Mark quickly pocketed it and tapped on his earpiece instead. “Jaehyun-hyung, you there?”

The child let out a small whimper. “Jaehyun-hyung!” Mark whispered urgently. Nothing.

He unhooked the earpiece and squinted at the blinking red light. Cursing, Mark stuffed it into his pocket. Stupid battery.

Mark squinted out through the thin curtains at the light dusting of grey on the horizon signalling the approaching dawn. He felt a surge of anger well up. If he was caught outside in the day time...

You know what. Screw the rules, and screw the people who let this child suffer. He couldn’t entrust this kid to someone who may or may not come back for him, not when he’d been left all alone, not when Mark was there right now.

Digging through his backpack, Mark fished out a wad of cash, human cash. While technically contraband, it was an open secret that everyone carried some since you never knew what might happen. It would be better than stealing, anyway.

Hurriedly, Mark threw open the front door and launched himself into the air. Hovering just above the low rooftops he quickly saw a neon green cross in the distance, and shot over to land in the corner before the door. It was some distance away from the house - not surprising, since they’d probably locate at a well, nicer district - and he grabbed a box of panadol and water, swiped them hurriedly under the scanner, and left exact change on the counter where a middle-aged lady sat sleeping.

Back in the room, it took Mark two tries to uncap the bottle of mineral water and to wrench two pills into his hand. With his free hand, he willed himself into solid form and gently shook the boy by the shoulder. The boy’s eyes fluttered open.

“Hey, take these okay?” Mark whispered, helping the boy to sit and practically shoving the pills into his mouth and washing it down with some water. He coughed a little as he swallowed but otherwise obediently did as he was told. He must have been so out of it, Mark’s heart wrenched in his chest.

“Kid, remember to take the medicine every six hours. You know the box, the one you’ve always had seen in the shelf,” Mark stared into the child’s glazed eyes, his own irises glowing golden. “Now, sleep.”

He didn’t need to be told twice, apparently. The moment his head touched the mattress again, he was out like a light. Heaving a sigh of relief, Mark left the box of medicine and water beside the bed for the boy to find when he woke up. 

Hands ghosting over the boy’s forehead once more, it was just as Mark had suspected. The resistance was gone. Through the cracks in the window, Mark could see shimmering tendrils hesitantly find their way in.

Mark bit his lip as he felt a burning sensation behind his eyes. Blinking back tears, he pushed away the niggling worry about what would happen later when Taeyong got his report. Letting his palm fill with the same gold that filled the night air outside to a concentration almost twice the stipulated amount, Mark blew on it gently.

This child deserved safety and joy, if only in dreams. If Mark could give him that, he _would_.

_You’ve always been a soft one,_ Jaehyun’s voice chided. 

He watched the dust fall, fall, surrounding the child in an envelope of warmth. Standing there for a moment longer, Mark headed out. Vaguely, he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket and wondered how long it had been ringing for.

He was already late in reporting back, and knew he could expect an earful from Taeyong and Jaehyun. He had, after all, broken two rules: First being the amount of sand for an individual and second, never, never come in direct contact with the human. With the adrenaline still coursing he felt strangely alright with that prospect. The panic hadn’t hit him yet.

But hopefully, with Mark’s magic and the muddle-headedness of the raging fever, this too, would be a dream.

\---

If Mark wasn’t in so much trouble, he might have found this funny.

Taeyong and Jaehyun sat facing him with identical poses; right leg crossed over left, slouched at a thirty degree angle, forefinger and thumb of their right hand pinching their nose bridge in an expression of utter, utter exasperation.

That was an oddly detailed description, Yukhei would later remark.

Well, Mark would later respond. He had a lot of time to look as they waited for Doyoung to reappear.

In that time, he must have memorised every single detail of the room. Not that he hadn’t been to Taeyong’s office before, but it usually wasn’t under such circumstances. The three of them were seated around the coffee table in the centre of the square room. Behind them, on the work desk, a name plaque with LEE TAEYONG, DIVISION HEAD was emblazoned in bold font. A tank of goldfish swam happily, oblivious to Mark’s current plight.

It had been bad enough when, as Mark had risen above the clouds and descended on the takeoff platform, he had seen Jaehyun waiting, feet tapping against the wooden boards and arms folded. It had been even worse when Mark actually landed and had realised Jaehyun wasn’t alone. Taeyong’s face had been carefully blank. Next to Taeyong, Doyoung had glared.

“Your earpiece and phone are for _contacting me when you encounter problems,_” Jaehyun had hissed through gritted teeth. 

“But -” Mark had started before cutting himself off. But what? The signal was gone, there may not have been time to go someplace else when dawn was just over the horizon, I thought I was doing the right thing.

Jaehyun’s stare bore holes through his skull. “But what?”

Mark hung his head and stayed silent.

“Thanks to your sand signals Johnny was able to get an address.” Taeyong said, looking past Mark. Mark shuffled to the side awkwardly when he realised Doyoung had made his way around him. Taeyong gave an imperceptible nod. “Doyoung, please.”

“You had better pray your boy’s okay.” Doyoung had sighed as he took the last few steps and dived off the platform, hurtling down to the city below. When Mark had first seen the operatives swan dive off that ridge he’d almost had a heart attack, but now he knew how they were protected from the air pressure and debris. He also knew how they’d decelerate to float the last few hundred metres down to wherever they were needed.

“Come with us.” Taeyong had ordered before promptly turning on his heel and walking away. Jaehyun had gestured for Mark to follow to Taeyong’s office, where they still sat waiting for news.

The empty wheelie-chair looked quite comfy, Mark thought idly. He continued to pick at his fingers in silence.

Doyoung burst through the doorway soon enough, and Taeyong and Jaehyun unfolded themselves from their hunched positions. Travelling to the house and back in just under three-quarters of an hour was extremely fast, even by their standards, but Doyoung was one of the fastest around. Taeyong looked at Doyoung expectantly.

“He was right, hyung,” Doyoung paused as he caught his breath. “The boy was running a high fever, alone in that building. The sand was a lot fresher than surrounding areas. And he wasn’t in the system. We collected a DNA sample that’s been sent to the labs. Ten said he’d try to get results out in a few hours.” 

Taeyong cursed under his breath, something about _those damn scouts_ and considered this for a moment. “Your verdict?”

“I don’t know about the medicine, but as for the sand, absolutely. Even after the copious amounts received I could still feel undercurrents pain. Johnny’s been flipping his shit over the comm.” Mark winced.

“I drowsed him when I gave the medicine,” Mark tried again desperately. “So that he would think it had been there the entire time.”

“And what about his parents?” His mentor, Jaehyun, shot back. “We can’t confirm anything right now, but what happens if they come back and see strange medicine by their child’s bedside?”

“Hyung, even if they suspect someone how -”

“I’m not talking about someone, I’m talking about the boy.” Jaehyun’s eyes glinted. “As far as they’re concerned, the boy’s the only person there. Logically, he’s the only one who could have bought the medicine.”

Mark felt his heart sink. The new box of medication would definitely look out of place in that run down house. If the only person there was the sick child, assuming they were short on money going by the state of things, the conclusion drawn was obvious. He sank back onto the chair, biting his lip.

At Mark’s lack of an answer, Jaehyun continued. “This isn’t about us, you know. For us it’s inconsequential, but the effect on the human’s lives can be very, very real.”

Taeyong had a pained look on his face. “The sand is easier to overlook, but Jaehyun raised a valid point. It’s dawn, so the damage is done if anyone has come back for him. When Dream Labs completes data extraction we can get a better hold on the situation before deciding on anything.Mark, please return home for the time being, we’ll be in contact with you shortly.”

Tears threatening to fall, Mark bowed quickly and hurried back to the apartment he and another trainee, Yukhei, shared with their mentors.

Which was where Yukhei found him moping on his bed a few hours later. He often dropped by the younger’s room when he had run out of snacks or needed a second player for mario kart. “Hey Marknae,” Yukhei called out, using his pet name for the boy. “Jaehyun not back yet?”

Mark grunted in reply. He buried his face in his pillow so Yukhei wouldn’t see his swollen eyes. Which was, of course, the time for Yukhei to swat him with a hissed _move it_ to make space for himself on the bed. He poked at the cushion until Mark relented. He peeked over the top, where he was met with a gentle smile.

“What’s up? Something happened?” Yukhei’s eyes turned serious, scanning Mark’s face.

“Hyung, I screwed up. What if Taeyong kicks me out, what happens to Sandmen when they can’t be Sandmen, oh gosh. Will I poof into nothingness?”

Yukhei blinked. Then he threw back his head and laughed. “Marknae-ah, you’re so cute.”

Mark frowned. “I’m being serious, hyung.”

“What did you even do hmm? Did you trip and spill sand everywhere again, I thought you were past the point of accidentally -”

“I interacted with the human.”

A pause. “Oh, shit.”

Mark groaned loudly into the pillow.

Another pause. “Did you drowse?”

“Yeah,” Mark sighed. “But I left something there. Spent money on medicine. It was a sick kid, hyung, and he didn’t seem to have anyone.”

“Oh shit,” Yukhei repeated, taking in this new piece of information. Mark melted back into the covers, becoming one with the bed.

“Oi, get back here,” he tugged at Mark’s sleeve. “‘Oh shit’ doesn’t mean the end of the world, y’know? You’re nineteen and you’ve been here what, two years? Three?”

“Three, four months in the field.” Not like they aged or anything, once they came here.

“Great, and I’ve been here three and a half years longer than you have. Jaehyun still hasn’t finished teaching you everything, you know.”

“Tell me about it,” Mark groaned, thinking back to all the times he and Jaehyun would have classes in the library or the lab. There were so many things to remember. It wasn’t like math where the rules stuck, this required something more akin to work acumen and experience. Which meant there were endless things to learn.

“You can always go be one of those scouts. Or well, messengers have falling numbers, so maybe -”

“Hyuuung. Not helping.”

The brunette hummed. “Hyung’s gonna tell you some stuff in advance first, okay? Don’t tell Jaehyun I told you this but, you like, can’t.”

“Can’t what?”

“Can’t be kicked out. Poofed out. Whatever. Cause you see right, what do you know about Sandmen?”

Mark furrowed his brow, trying to recall Jaehyun’s past lectures. “People who have lost dreams in the past have an option to become Sandmen, giving dreams to people of the future.”

Yukhei nodded. “Some alternative death programme, huh? But here’s the thing - the selection has already been done by some higher power mojo. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t meant to be, and the sand wouldn’t listen to you if you weren’t meant to be one of us, see?”

Mark didn’t. He said that out loud. Yukhei grinned affectionately at his clueless dongsaeng. “That’s like the tldr version though, you’re gonna have to go through some months of this theory shit soon. So just cheer up hmm? You look like a man on death row when you don’t even know what the decision will be.”

“Thanks, hyung.” Mark looked significantly more relieved, relaxing against the bedpost.

“Great! Do I get bumped up to ‘Mark Lee’s best hyung ever’?”

Mark snorted. “You wish, dude. Jaehyun’s the best.” Even though right now he was probably pissed out of his mind his mentee did something so stupid.

“Okay, whatever. Mark my words, one day I shall - Ooh, are those banana almonds?”

Mark’s eyes shot open. “No?”

But too late, Yukhei’s eyes were already on the prize. Quickly, he slid off the bed and made grabby hands towards Mark’s open desk drawer but too late, Mark had already thrown his arms around the elder’s middle, effectively holding him back.

“Banana almonds are already insufficient payment for my hyung advice!” Yukhei whined against Mark’s death grip. “Let me go you little -”

_Ping._

Two pairs of eyes shot to Mark’s phone. Mark released Yukhei immediately, causing him to fall to the floor with a thud and a yelp, and hurriedly unlocked his phone. The message was short, like most of Jaehyun’s other ones: _Meet us at the lab in 5._

Mark went pale. “OhmygoshYukeheihyungI’mgoingtodie-”

“Hey, hey - no, don’t start that again. Just go and see what they have to say okay, I promise I won’t steal your banana almonds when you’re gone.”

Mark nodded mutely. Yukhei glanced at the clock on the wall. The clock’s second hand helpfully wiggled to the right. “You’d better hurry dude. Don’t wanna be late.”

Yukhei heard a muffled _oh shit_ as Mark scrambled out the door, almost running straight into Kun in the process. Calling an embarrassed apology behind his back, Mark sprinted even faster, wind buffeting at his burning cheeks.

Kun blinked, still holding out the apartment key in his right hand. His eyes narrowed dangerously as Yukhei appeared in the doorway. “Yukhei, were you harassing Mark again?”

\---

Ten was waiting for him at the entrance when Mark stumbled through the glass doors. His ever-present smile looked a bit strained, and Mark felt the butterflies in his stomach turn to stones.

“Mark-ah, Jaehyun and Johnny are waiting downstairs. Boss said he’d pop down later.” Ten flashed his signature smile, which Mark failed miserably at returning. Motioning Mark over, Ten swirled to the stairs, white lab coat trailing behind.

His footsteps sounded loudly as he led the way down the steps to the basement. It had been a while since Mark had been to this side of the labs (Jaehyun conducted their nightly reviews in the smaller labs upstairs), but everything was just as he remembered.

Dream Lab basement two was split into an even half: one side a computer lab, Johnny’s side, and the other a chemistry lab, Ten’s.

On Johnny’s side, the concrete walls were barely visible from the shelves and shelves of files and various electrical devices lining them. Wires thick and thin snaked through and behind every imaginable surface. Patches of duct tape lined most of them. 

“The most impenetrable substance known to man,” Johnny had proclaimed smugly as he had pulled out a strip with an obnoxious _shhhhhhhrrrrrk_, pasting it on with gusto. It was cheaper than normal wire protection, Mark had supposed, nodding solemnly. Ten had just rolled his eyes.

On Ten’s side, rows of tables were piled with an assortment of glassware filled with dubious-looking fluid. Some bubbled happily, some, not so happily. Stacks of tomes line the few bookshelves by the corner, and a row of pegs held two spare lab coats. 

If Mark were pressed to summarise the scene in two words, they would be: a mess. A big one. And yet, some of the most important work was done there.

Mark never knew how they managed to get the chemistry lab and computer lab side by side. He was quite sure it was some safety breach of ridiculous proportions, or it would have been, back on Earth, but dreamstuff mechanics were a mind-boggling study that not many chose to specialise in. You’d have to be at least slightly crazy. Ten and Johnny definitely were.

Ten led the way through shelves and boxes before they came to a more cleared-out part of Johnny’s side of the room. It was mostly hidden when they had entered, a feat in itself given the monstrosity of the structure.

Eighteen large computer screens were arranged like a falling wave, towering over a cluttered desk. If Ten’s work was mostly research, Johnny’s was more of analytics. It was crucial, his surveillance - it allowed them to monitor everyone’s dream contents and detect unusual activity. It also contained the database of all the humans within their division. Theirs was division 127, based in Seoul.

Mark knew other floors had labs for other divisions for parts of Asia. In his time there he hadn’t been to many before, just this one and the lab three floors up, where Hendery and XiaoJun ran support for division WayV that Yukhei and Kun were under.

Right now, the screens on the peripherals were filled with the usual dream-monitoring, flicking quickly from scene to scene. The screen nearest to the desk were filled with a series of green words and charts Mark couldn’t quite make out.

Johnny was sat in the comfortable-looking chair, typing furiously away. Jaehyun stood by the side, murmuring something to Johnny. Noticing Mark and Ten approaching, he stopped and looked up.

“‘Sup, Mark,” Johnny greeted him amiably, spinning around. “Caused some trouble, haven’t you?”

There wasn’t any malice or judgement in his tone. Mark felt the corners of his lips quirk up a little. Honestly, apart from the job, his favourite part was getting to know all the hyungs who worked together with him. He’s never met a cruel or unkind Sandman, never, and the ones he knew could somehow always wiggle a smile out of him even when he felt he could not.

Even their division leader Taeyong was a pretty cool guy and a good hyung. Though he scared the living daylights out of Mark when he was pissed, it was never for an unjust reason. And for all his brooding, Doyoung showed affection for his maknaes in his own way. Right now, Mark was the only trainee under their division, so he got his fair share of spoiling by his hyungs.

“Johnny hyung.” Mark returned the greeting. His voice must have betrayed his worry because he was met with Johnny’s gentle laugh.

“We’re not gonna eat you, little dude. C’mere, let’s have a look at this boy you found.”

While Ten walked over to Jaehyun, Mark peered over Johnny’s shoulder. Immediately, he felt like he had been slapped in the face. “There is absolutely no way that kid is going on fifteen.”

“Honestly? I agree.” Johnny gestured to the screen on the left. A familiar image of a sleeping child appeared after a click of a button. “Unless Ten was wrong -”

“Hey, my analytics are _brilliant_, thank you very much.” Ten snorted.

Johnny chuckled as Jaehyun rolled his eyes and muttering darkly about them being an old married couple. Quickly though, he face turned serious. “And you know he hardly is, so this is, however it may seem, the truth for Lee Donghyuck.” Johnny gestured to the green words on the screen that denoted the boy’s case file. “From the records we dug out, his parents are divorced and he’s staying with his father, has been for about two years. After losing his job a year ago, he turned alcoholic. Lost money gambling, which pushed him deeper into drinking.”

_Donghyuck._ The name seared itself into Mark’s brain. Now that he could put a name to the face, and a reason to those eyes that had stared up at him, half-pleading and half-fearful in that fevered state, Mark felt tired. So tired. But he also felt the same certainty he did when he had propped up the boy in his arms.

“Jaehyun-hyung, what’s going to happen to him?” Mark’s voice was tight. He had come here desperate to know what his punishment would be, but somehow that now paled in comparison to knowing what would happen to Donghyuck. 

Maybe he’d be assigned to a different, more experienced operative. Something in Mark’s stomach curled at the thought, though some rational part of him argued it would probably be for the best.

Jaehyun placed a hand on Mark’s shoulder, guiding his attention back to the screens. “Let’s have a look at the dream you gave him before we discuss anything else.”

When Mark had joined, the saying ‘If you can imagine it, you can achieve it’ took on an entirely different meaning. When assigned a list of people, one of the Sandman operatives would be able to access their basic profiles and, upon visiting them, be able to feel their current emotions, current longings. It was then up to the operative to fabricate a dream and bring it to life in a swirl of golden sand.

Mark hadn’t known a single thing about Donghyuck. All he knew was that he had looked into the eyes of a young boy and they had been terrified. He had put up a barrier to his subconscious at first. Now, Mark could recall Jaehyun’s lesson about that. Having a barrier that repelled sand was rare, and needed to be induced by extremely powerful subconscious thought. There were a few possibilities that had been discovered: One was that they didn’t believe they deserved dreams. Another was that they feared it.

And maybe some part of Mark had remembered what Jaehyun had said, or at least remembered how he felt when he had learned about it. Apart from the drowse, Mark hadn’t actually formed a coherent picture with the sand. He had just...felt.

Johnny rapidly typed some commands into the system. A small printing device whirred to life, spitting out something that looked vaguely like a polaroid. Mark knew that Johnny would swipe this through the dream-viewer later.

He took a shuddering breath as grasped the proffered cylindrical device that would allow him to see into the dream he had given Donghyuck.

“Ready and...go.”

_Dream. A strongly desired goal or purpose. A series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person’s mind during sleep._

Mark saw the stack of mouldy takeout boxes that littered the living room. His view lingered on a row of empty bottles poking out from behind the couch.

Wait a minute, he hadn’t seen those -

Oh, right. He was in Donghyuck’s mind now.

It felt like some simulation ride in a theme park. Mark saw the images flash by. It felt like he was performing those actions but at the same time, his body didn’t listen to his mind. And so he watched as his ‘hand’ lifted two white pills to his mouth and swallowed after taking a swig of water.

Mark felt a wave of relief. That meant his drowsing had worked, and the incident had been integrated seamlessly into Donghyuck’s dream. When Donghyuck woke up, it would seem to him that he had just dreamt of something he had done while awake. 

Then Mark was plunged into darkness. He was on the verge of freaking out about giving Donghyuck a dream with nothing, often a rookie mistake when operatives panicked, but then he felt it.

One sensation: arms encircling him, caressing his entire being. One thought: of a fierce protector, holding on tight as if it would never let go. 

Then Johnny had flicked the switch to the machine, and Mark was back to reality. The next thing he knew was that he was being steadied by Jaehyun’s firm grip. There was a confused mess of voices. A sound of something falling to the floor. Then nothing.

When Mark came too, he found himself staring straight at Ten’s face. Giving a yelp of surprise, he tumbled straight off the couch. Above him, he heard Jaehyun swear as he landed heavily on the elder’s toes.

“Am I that ugly?” he heard Ten mutter darkly from somewhere above him. Someone hissed something back. There was a sound of a soft slap followed by receding footsteps.

Jaehyun reached a hand down to pull Mark up onto the couch. He blinked blearily at the elder. “What happened?”

“You were in the dream. The intensity placed a lot of stress on you.” Jaehyun said. “So, what did you notice?”

That was the tone Jaehyun took when he wanted Mark to learn something. Mark sat up straighter. 

“I saw myself taking medication, which means my drowsing must have worked.” At Jaehyun’s nod of approval, he carried on. “After that, Donghyuck lowered his inhibitions towards the sand. I messed up though ‘cause there wasn’t any images, just sensation. I wasn’t...thinking so well back then.”

Jaehyun hummed in agreement. “In some ways, you giving Donghyuck a demi-dream might have actually been a good thing. It’s not impossible to have good dreams without a Sandman visiting, it’s just a lot rarer. Given that this kid wasn’t on our registry and given his background, I’d say that suddenly being thrown into one might have been more traumatic than anything.”

“Ah, so that’s the force thing I felt. It felt so weird you know, it was like pushing me away and -”

“Oh, Mark. You’re awake.”

Stopping mid sentence, Mark turned around. His throat went dry at the sight of Taeyong making his way over, coffee in hand. He hurriedly bowed to the elder. “Taeyong-hyung.”

“Don’t look so stressed Mark-ah. You’ll be happy to know that you aren’t in trouble, technically.”

Mark winced. Technically?

“There are times when operatives do have to step in tangibly, though they are extremely rare.” Taeyong hummed. “I’ve just had a meeting with some other division heads. It was assessed that there’s no real damage done currently and though it had its risks, your actions weren’t awful. We haven’t got any alarms from the surveillance, and your work tonight put two people on our registry. Of course, there’s still responsibility to be taken.”

“Responsibility?”

“He wants you to take over Donghyuck’s case,” Jaehyun interrupted flatly. Mark’s gaze flitted from Jaehyun’s folded arms to Taeyong’s steady stare.

No way. He had been so worried about Donghyuck, and now he would be able to check on him, to give him warm dreams. But it would also be him seeing the boy where he was, knowing he couldn’t do more to help.

Maybe he could, though. Maybe he actually could do something.

“Yes, I do. Would you -”

“I accept,” Mark blurted out. He slapped his hands over his mouth, mortified at having interrupted Taeyong. 

“It’s not going to be an easy case,” Taeyong warned, thankfully unfazed by Mark’s interruption. “Your mentor was quite opposed to the idea.”

Mark looked at Jaehyun in surprise. Jaehyun closed his eyes. “Hyung, you know why I said what I did.”

“And you know why I replied the way I did.” Taeyong’s eyes softened as he looked at his old mentee. “Besides, you know this is not a case that can be easily given to someone else after he’s already received Mark’s dream.”

Jaehyun sighed and turned his face slightly away. He nodded imperceptibly. “We’ll do it your way.”

Turning back to face Mark, Taeyong fixed him with a firm stare, and Mark stared into the cool grey eyes. Vaguely, he wondered how many dreams he had seen in his years as an operative. “I will repeat it again: this is not something to be taken lightly. Though I suppose you’d know that, having put your life in danger for the boy once already.” At Mark’s nod, he continued. “Listen to Jaehyun. He’ll guide you through this. This is something you can learn a lot from.”

There was a long pause as Taeyong stared searchingly at Mark. Apparently satisfied, he stood back upright. “I’ve got a meeting in about five minutes. I look forward to hearing about your progress, Mark. ” With a last friendly smile, Taeyong left.

Startled, Mark could do little else but stare at his retreating figure. Jaehyun’s eyes also followed the back of his old mentor. “Jaehyun-hyung, what did Taeyong-hyung mean by that?”

Jaehyun muttered something under his breath.

“Huh?”

Jaehyun gave Mark a wry smile. “He said the last part to make sure I’d tell you the truth of what I thought about it. He still worries, huh.”

Mark frowned. “Worries about what?”

“Worries that I’ll keep things from you because I think you’re not ready.”

“A...Am I? Not ready, you think?” Mark couldn’t keep the alarm from seeping into his voice. “But Taeyong-hyung said -”

“I know.” Jaehyun replied softly. His eyes were conflicted as he averted his gaze to the floor. “I worry, Mark-ah. I really do.”

That was enough to cause Mark to look at him, really look at him. Pinpricks of guilt poked at his chest. He’d been so busy worrying about Donghyuck and himself that he hadn’t really thought about how his mentor had been feeling. 

He remembered the day he had first woken up in the city above the clouds. He had sat up at the foot of stairs to what he would later come to know as Taeyong’s office building. Not knowing what else to do, he had climbed the stairs and walked through the unlocked doors. 

The foyer was, in one word, grand.

The floor was made of white marble, pillars distinctly grecian. The ceiling rose higher than any he’d ever seen. Grey stone walls surrounded him on all four sides. There was also a slight shimmery quality to the building. He had touched the nearest pillar, almost like he couldn’t help himself. His hand had come away sandy.

“Mark Lee?”

Mark had whipped his head around, just then realising he hadn’t been alone. Two slim figures in suits stood opposite him. One had slicked red hair and the most delicate features. The other was a brunette, smiling like someone who knew something he didn’t. His eyes were kind. Somehow, Mark felt like he had known him for a very long time.

He would later learn during their first lesson that what he had felt was the dream-bond between mentor and mentee operatives. It was shared by people who had lost the same dream, or had lived the same dream. Either way, they’d have seen it night after night when they had fallen asleep and the golden powder danced over their eyes.

Jaehyun, he later found out, had wanted to be a musician. At the request of his family, he had become a doctor. Now, he was like the older brother Mark had never had.

“Hyung,” Mark said softly. “I’m sorry for making you worry.”

Jaehyun gave a silent nod of acknowledgement. Mark’s message had gotten through, though. It always did between them. The brunette’s features relaxed just a bit and hesitantly, Mark piped up again. “Is...is that all?”

“It’s not that I disagree it’ll be a good learning experience for you,” Jaehyun began slowly, choosing his words with care. “Just...Taeyong-hyung wasn’t kidding when he said it’s going to be hard.”

“I’ll take it seriously, hyung, you know I always do.” Mark soothed. “And besides, I’ve got you.” 

Jaehyun nodded distractedly. “You’ll have extra community service too. I’m sure Johnny and Ten wouldn’t mind having an assistant to help run this place, it’s a mess.” 

Mark almost regretted asking. He loved hanging out with Johnny and Ten, don’t get him wrong, but he could have been using that time to study, or -

He looked around at the complete, utter garbage dump that was the basement.

“And you had better get something nice for Ten the next time you come over. He really hauled ass to get the results out fast.”

Mark groaned. He’d have to get some for Johnny too, probably, and Jaehyun for good measure. There was a pause as he thought. “Hyung, you know our kitchen -” he grimaced at Jaehyun’s flinch- “calm down, I’m not cooking anything but...does our oven work?”

\---

The early evening saw Jaehyun and Mark at the library. Standing at the counter they rung the bell, and Yuta immediately popped out from behind the computer screen like an enthusiastic meerkat.

“Jaehyun, Mark! Long time no see!”

Jaehyun grinned back sheepishly. “Assignments and all that, the usual.”

“Don’t I know it,” Yuta huffed. “Archives sorting’s getting worse and worse with the population boom. Taeil’s about ready to tear out all his hair.”

Legend had it that Dr Moon, resident history expert and librarian, had never been seen outside of the library in years. In the carpeted hallways he was a fixture, a quiet man with round-rimmed glasses. He wasn’t just a fixture in the library though, he was a fixture to all of 127. He must have been their first operative there, even earlier than Taeyong. And Taeyong was from the _Joseon_ era.

“We need to look through some archives, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course!” Yuta pulled out some forms and placed them on the countertop. “Sign here and I’ll go grab them for you. Which division?”

Mark opened his mouth, the familiar _127_ on his tongue when Jaehyun spoke up. “U.”

Yuta’s mouth formed a surprised ‘o’. “Special assignment?”

Jaehyun hummed an assent, pen flying over the form. He handed it back to Yuta who quickly scanned through the contents. “For Mark.”

“Eyy, that’s early.” Yuta gave a low whistle. He cleared his throat. “Not gonna be easy, but you must be excited! I never got a U assignment but Jaehyun here has, so you’re in good hands.”

Mark blinked cluelessly. “Taeyong swapped my division?”

Yuta threw back his head with a laugh while Jaehyun had the grace to look a bit embarrassed. “It’s the categorising system,” Yuta explained, leaning in conspiratorially. “Taeil-hyung’s convinced they do these weird names just to mess with him.”

“They do.” Came a flat retort. “Literally nobody needs so many divisions. Do you know how long it took to clear the space for an entirely new set of shelves? Do you know how many units Kibum has to file for. One. That’s right, one.”

Taeil made his way over carrying a frankly massive stack of folders. For the harmless-hipster-librarian look he had going on with the baggy brown overalls and a loose fitting shirt, Mark was certain he had to be pretty ripped to carry a stack of folders that looked like they weighed more than he did. He rubbed his stomach self-consciously. And he was spoiled with Kun’s cooking every day.

When he had maneuvered his way past the counter and to the back room, Yuta let out a snort. “He says this like he could ever let his precious arrangements be taken over by someone else. I’ll go get these for you, wait a moment yeah.”

“Hyung, what’s division U?” whispered Mark to Jaehyun once Yuta had left them alone. 

Jaehyun craned his neck to see something. Apparently satisfied, he answered, “You know most divisions are arranged by location, and for 127 and WayV operatives are more or less fixed. U is, for lack of a better way to put it, for ‘problem’ cases, so it’s a case-by-case basis.”

“Are you assigned to it, or is it like what happened to me?”

“Depends,” Jaehyun pursed his lips at the quiet sound of approaching footsteps. He kept his voice low. “We’ll discuss this more later.”

He had barely finished speaking when Yuta appeared with a familiar stack of folders that, thankfully, was much less than what Taeil had been hauling around earlier. Still, it took both Mark and Jaehyun to transfer the lot to a vacant table, and by then Mark was out of breath, arms aching.

(“Here, three months’ of archives are more than enough for you before your shift.”

“Three months?” Mark had stared bug-eyed at the pile, standing a foot high. “How much was Taeil-hyung carrying just now?”

Yuta seriously considered this for a while. “I don’t know, maybe half a year? I’ve seen him go up to a year before.”

Jaehyun hadn’t even tried to hide his snigger at Mark’s dumbstruck expression. Taeil was shorter than he was and ancient, this couldn’t seriously be right.)

The two spent the next three hours pouring over past case information, ranging from alcoholics to drug addicts to child abuse cases. Mark knew that for the past three weeks he’d been acting as an independent (albeit trainee) operative, Jaehyun had given him easier cases to deal with, nothing out of the ordinary. 

His mentor jogged his thinking with a few references to basic principles. Every operative had a distinct brand, a fingerprint, if you will, for their dreams. They typically followed their charges throughout their lives to avoid major shifts in mental conditions, though reassignments were possible during transitory phases of their lives. Especially for someone like Donghyuck, it was better to stick with what he had already experienced than to throw something new at him again. 

Throwing Mark straight into this case would be a terrible mistake though, which was why they were there in the first place, picking out and formulating strategies he could try out.

Hours later, the clock struck eleven and they had to prepare for the night.

Mark went through his usual route, heart beating fast as a rabbit despite the breathing exercises he did between places. Jaehyun had given him an extra tight hug before he had left, telling him to buzz him if he needed help. Kun, Yukhei’s mentor, had ruffled his hair before making the trip to Beijing. Yukhei had flashed him a bright smile, bounding over like an overgrown rabbit and throwing his hands around Mark.

“Marknae, Marknae~” Yukhei had sung, using his pet name for the youngest Sandman. “Fighting!”

Mark felt his fight or flight instincts, alright. They told him to get the heck away from here, fast. But something else, something stronger, pushed him through the doorway of his last stop.

The house was empty. This time, Mark noticed the pile of glass bottles mostly hidden by the couch. He also saw the small kitchen, a single bathroom, and another room on the other end of the hall. There was no pull towards that one.

Cautiously, Mark entered the bathroom. Opening the small mirror cupboard, he was greeted with the sight of a familiar box of medication and water bottle. The level of water seemed lower than it had, and Mark noted with satisfaction that a few more pills had been taken. Replacing them, he stepped back outside.

In the bedroom, Donghyuck lay sleeping.

Familiar tendrils of powder swirled around Mark’s feet as he entered. A good sign, he sighed with relief. He wasn’t fighting it.

“Mark?” Jaehyun’s voice floated through the static. “Remember what we went through and don’t get carried away. Doyoung installed heat sensors in the roof with a basic stock of Ten’s signals. We’ve gotten the neighbouring ahjumma to visit in the day to check on him.”

Mark sighed. “Got it, hyung. It would be so much better if she could take him in.”

“You know she can’t. Mark-ah, there will always be cases where we can’t help more.”

A sigh. “I know, hyung.”

Mark sat down beside the mattress. This time when he felt the boy’s forehead, it was only slightly warm. His lips were less cracked, too, but his skin still had the sickly pale pallor of residue fever.

Now, what dream to give? The boy’s database was still largely empty. Mark supposed he could always go with his favourite: music, but somehow it didn’t seem right. Perhaps animals? Most children found them comforting…

_Your demi-dream may have been a good thing._ Jaehyun’s words floated back to him. _It can change as we go along, but maybe something simple for tonight. What do you want to give him?_

Independent thought process, especially on the spot thinking, was a crucial skill Jaehyun had hoped to develop in the young Sandman as early as possible. _I...want him to feel like he’s not alone._

_“Over here there’s a case where the operative used demi-dream easing too. Something about a huge eye, and the look of this eye as calming. I think it was filled with flower petals, you can pick and choose based on what flower you think is best. Fits quite well with what you’re studying now, right?”_

Beside him, Donghyuck suddenly convulsed in a fit of violent coughing. Mark sat through it, wanting more than anything to lay a hand on his back, rub circles to make him feel better. But he couldn’t. All he could do was grit his teeth and stare.

Slowly, the coughing subsided. Donghyuck’s face had lost its earlier restfulness, and he thrashed weakly, twisting the blankets.

A calming look, huh? This boy would be seen, he would be seen and feel seen.

He wondered if the phlegm - it had sounded like phlegm - and wheezing made it feel like sleep paralysis for the boy, chest tight and breathing a battle. Mark took a deep breath to compose himself for the task at hand. Catching the sour odour of stale soju, he wrinkled his nose. Donghyuck wasn’t going to have to smell that crap if Mark could do anything about it.

As the night sky started to turn with the lightest traces of grey, Mark left him with the scent of white heather.

\---

“Nice one yesterday,” Johnny greeted Mark. It was still a few hours before the sun would set and he’d have to meet Jaehyun at the library again.

Mark’s eyes lit up. “You think so? Jaehyun-hyung helped me with the concept.” 

“Delivery is up to you though, which means we’ve got ourselves a competent slave.” Ten walked over nursing a cup of iced tea. He pinched Mark’s cheek and cooed. “A cute, competent slave.”

“You saw it too?”

“Of course. I’m more invested in your case than usual because Earth’s variety programmes are getting so _boring_. Other than the Kardashians, of course. Love them.”

Johnny pulled a face. “I can’t believe you made me watch - who was it? Kim? - get married yesterday -”

“Well, I can’t believe you actually watched it,” Ten retorted.

“ - I guarantee you, that’s going to last two months, max.”

Mark and Ten stared at him. “Nah, did you see the money they blew on the whole thing?”

The elder gave an annoyed huff. “In two months you can come back and call me Johnny: Relationship Evaluator.”

“Then what about the time when you said Kendall would become a model. She’s like, six.” 

“Johnny: Fashion Evaluator.” Johnny replied without missing a beat. He turned to Mark. “Anyway, you’re not a slave so don’t listen to him. Ten only wants a slave ‘cause he can’t be bothered to get rid of his set-ups when they start to grow mould, then he gets scared when bugs appear.”

“Oh, yesterday Yukhei snuck back some plastic chamber from Hendery-hyung and it had like so many maggots.” Ten stared at Mark, eyes bulging and looking like he was going to throw up anytime. “Kun-hyung almost strangled him. To be fair, it was gross.”

“You better stop before he makes you do worse things than scrap month-old mould from the bottom of his Erlenmeyer flasks.” Johnny interjected before Ten could actually faint. “Are you going to stick to demis for the next few weeks?”

Mark nodded. “Jaehyun-hyung suggested keeping it to maybe two weeks? His fever’s gotten better, and there’s a visiting neighbour, apparently.”

Johnny considered this. “It’ll have to do for now. Keep me posted okay?”

“Will do!” With a sheepish grin Mark turned to Ten, gulping at the borderline murderous look in his eyes. “Sorry hyung, what did you want me to do again?”

A hundred flasks later, Ten relented and let Mark off early. Jaehyun was already at their usual spot, having checked out yet another stack of archives, and greeted Mark warmly. They spent the rest of their time flicking through the pages.

\---

Over the next two weeks, Mark became pretty adept at demi-dreams.

“It’s always a useful skill,” Jaehyun had said. “Blocking certain things to avoid sensory overload, or emphasising one very important thing.”

Mark thought their progress this past few days had been very good. Every night Mark had returned to the same scene, and every night Donghyuck’s fever went down until one night, a few days ago, it had disappeared entirely.

He had stuck to the demi-dreams, and it was obvious that Donghyuck’s body was slowly starting to accept them. On good nights, which they had been the past four, five nights, Mark would tentatively reach out and feel a small pulse of energy - still nothing like Shin Yuna’s who he usually visited before Donghyuck - but it was there and it was alive.

Usually people would ask for things, for things to be bigger and better than they could be on Earth. This child didn’t. It was a small quip of a pulse, such that Mark couldn’t tell anything about the boy, what he wanted, what he lived for, what went on in his daily life.

Maybe Mark didn’t want to know. Or so he tried to convince himself, not that it was a choice. It was, after all, his job to do what he could to soften the rough edges people had experienced, by giving them something bigger than could be in their reality, or by pulling up memories from the deepest recesses of their thoughts to remind them of things they needed to remember.

He smiled. He had a good plan for tonight. Jaehyun had helped him sketch the scene he’d decided on, a homely little cafeteria he’d once seen when visiting their New York division, complete with a cup of hot tea and a slice of cake. With the sights, smells, sounds of the cafe, it would be Donghyuck’s first complete dream, and one that was gentle on the mind.

Mark stepped up with a hand on the doorknob and froze.

There was...someone else there. One pull was familiar, but Mark frowned at the sensation of another. An adult’s pull always was more insistent than a childs’. He opened the door.

Immediately, Mark could see the way the mist that had taken to seeping from the gap under the door swirled around two centres instead of one. His eyes landed on the couch and his stomach dropped to his feet.

The father, probably. He had a shock of curly, matted hair like his son, but where his son was skin and bones this man was...not.

Alcohol was high on calories, Mark thought absently as he padded over. Taking a sniff he choked at the reek of alcohol. Just how much had this man drunk already?

This was the man that had left Donghyuck alone, shivering, burning. Anger flared in the pits of Mark’s stomach. This man didn’t deserve to dream.

But Sandman had to give dreams no matter who the person was. He couldn’t mess up again, if he did Taeyong might deem him too personally invested to continue with this and decide it was too risky for him to continue with Donghyuck’s case. 

He didn’t want to, he really really didn’t want to, but how could he risk it? Mark bit on his lip hard. The jolt of pain brought him back to his senses. Collecting himself, he reached out the barest hint of a finger to sense the man’s mind. 

Blessedly, there was nothing but static. 

“Too drunk to even dream, huh,” Mark muttered into the dark. _Or to take care of your kid,_ his mind supplemented. He knew the man wouldn’t hear, but it still took all of him to keep his mouth shut. Saying things aloud always made them more real. He moved past him and into the bedroom.

Donghyuck was there, sleeping. Mark let go of the breath he didn’t know he had been holding because what would he have done if he hadn’t been there?

Gingerly, he knelt down and reached out. No reply.

Sighing, Mark pulled his hand away and willed the dust to form. He felt ants crawling as he poured the sand on Donghyuck’s eyes, watched them sink into his skin. His instincts were jittery all night, but still he took up his position that had become so familiar over the past two weeks, sitting vigil beside Donghyuck until the sky started to turn and Jaehyun’s voice buzzed over the intercom to call him home.


	2. Switch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some donghyuck-pov before we get back into the main story this is a lot shorter than the other chapters :)

Donghyuck never liked sleeping.

Sleeping meant floating in dark blackness. It meant lying there, suspended amidst nothingness and, when he reached out his senses, feeling his limbs like dead weights that wouldn’t budge when he tried to move. And always, the sickly smell of rotten soju and beer seemed to never leave.

Sometimes he would see things. Large, freaky things that weren’t quite human, shadows dancing in frenzy along the backlit walls, roar or groan with something slimy and moist making its way slowly towards him, dragging its colossal mass through the hallways through which he’d run, but they’d never end no matter how far he got or worse still, he’d run and end up running back to the place where he had started from, to continue running through the halls he knew had no end. 

Some nights, he dreamt about his father. Those nights no one would come to his aid, though his neighbours did sometimes, back in the real world. He tried not to think about those nights.

More often than not it was the same place. Once he had ducked into the bathroom in the corner of that circular hallway and slammed the door shut. He had turned to the sink and had almost thrown up at its contents - dark, sticky red liquid bubbling forth. The air had been so heavy and he had stared at the flimsy doors, rattling like crazed things possessed against the doorframe.

One time he had run into a new room. Five people sat on various surfaces and they looked like what he thought his neighbours might look like on the rare occasions he had glimpsed them. But where their eyes should be were pools of black stones. They had turned, slowly, slowly, to stare at him as he stood rooted to the ground. They wanted something.

What is it? He had shouted, or had he? Could anyone hear him? What do you want? What do you want that I haven’t given?

But sleeping meant he wouldn’t have to see the mess that was the house. It meant lying quietly under the covers, small and obscured from sight, so his father might not have any reason to find him. He wouldn’t have any reason to see him either.

So Donghyuck didn’t like sleeping. But he hated being awake.

Looking back, it wasn’t strange at all that he had fallen sick. In fact, it’d have been more strange if had not fallen sick, running in the rain like that with nothing more than a thin shirt. His father would be out for days at a time then, which was probably better than if he’d been home, shouting at his son for being stupid enough to fall sick, was he trying to bleed him dry? Donghyuck thought that if he was lucky, he’d be well before his father got home.

He had some money, saved bits here and there from what well-meaning ahjummas gave him, or what he could keep hidden from his father after a night selling chewing gum at the local food streets or markets. Perhaps it would be enough to buy a box of medication.

When he had woken up, his head had felt stuffed full of cotton. Standing up he’d been too dizzy and immediately sat down on the mattress for fear of falling. Thinking of slicing the thin cloth of the mattress open, digging around for the wad of notes he’d kept there, finding his way to the pharmacy then coming back home made his head swim. 

Not to mention the inevitable questions he’d be asked about where he lived and where his parents were. Usually he was able to deflect those with smooth words and a charming smile, but now he wasn’t sure he’d be able to.

Maybe tomorrow, he had thought hazily. Trying to push himself up to get a drink of water from the tap meant navigating the curious tangle of legs he suddenly had. He giggled softly. Maybe he was becoming an octopus. 

The room was spinning, did it always spin like that? That was funny, he decided, falling back down onto the mattress. He shut his eyes, and was enveloped in darkness once again.

The black felt thicker this time. He couldn’t will his eyelids to open far enough to see. His limbs didn’t feel heavy, they felt held down. There was a weight pressing down on his chest and he could hardly breathe, it hurt to draw air into his lungs. But he still didn’t wake up.

How could he, when the darkness was such a soft pillow, caressing his head gently, holding him up with a kindness he never felt.

Donghyuck opened his eyes.

Was he still dreaming? He wondered himself idly as he mustered up the strength to push himself to his knees, then his feet. He stumbled out to the kitchen. It was dark - since when had it become night? - and a brand new box of medicine sat on the counter. So he had gone in the end. Huh. He reached out a hand and found himself holding a bottle of water. Almost automatically, he popped two pills and swallowed them.

The water was a sudden wave of bliss he didn’t know he needed. His throat, dry like sandpaper, felt its fresh kiss, calming the hot red welts with a soft sizzle. The fires within his mind seemed to retreat by a metre. He no longer felt like he was being boiled alive.

Then nothing, just the familiar blackness. Donghyuck frowned. That had felt strangely real.

Was this what they called....a dream? If what he usually had were nightmares then that was the only explanation. Or it had been until now, back in his sanctuary of darkness under the stars except he couldn’t see the stars, and anytime now he’d be back there again, transversing the never ending corridor, the bathroom sink gurgling blood and bruises for eternity. Donghyuck squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for it to come.

It never came.

Donghyuck only had time to snap his eyes open in shock, taking in the milky darkness, mouth beginning to form a question when he felt it. There was something holding onto him.

He’s felt contact when asleep before. Sometimes he hadn’t been fast enough, see, and the, the _thing_ chasing him in his dreams was too fast. In that hallway anything touching him, a stray leaf, a broken photo frame, and his heart would skyrocket from his chest. So why wasn’t he feeling anything now?

A surge of something welled up and he felt....safe. Gradually, the haziness melted off and the holds on him turned into strong, firm arms. Donghyuck felt himself relaxing into the warm embrace despite everything.

Don’t question it, he remembered thinking as his eyes fluttered shut. Don’t ask too much or it’ll all be gone. Please, if there’s a god out there, let me have this, at least just this once.

He didn’t know hands could hold like this, or fierce could be something good.

\---

The next night, Donghyuck slid into sleep with eyes firmly open. Closing them would be defeat, letting himself be vulnerable.

He let out a derisive snort. He couldn’t - wouldn’t - be tricked into thinking the monster was gone. Hands that could hold him wouldn’t push that monster away. The last time he had done that…

Something rustled nearby. Donghyuck wondered when he had sat up, much less stood up. But there he was on an open, light purple platform. It seemed if he walked off the edge, he’d fall into nothingness. So he stayed put.

In hindsight, moving or staying put wouldn’t have made a difference, because the eye that opened up before him was huge.

One moment the sky was the grey of a particularly bright night, the next some mysterious lines in that space parted to reveal a giant iris. It was looking straight at him, Donghyuck registered with a start. It stared. He stared back. Big mistake.

This...this was a disembodied eye. But how was it that it looked at Donghyuck with such tenderness, the way he’d always longed to be looked at? It was so easy to be lost in its gaze, iris the colour of a nebula, blinking slowly but gently, just at him, just for him.

Something tickled his nose and he took a deep breath. It smelled sweet and fresh.

\---

The third night, he would deny the disappointment he felt when he only saw darkness. But hope is intrinsically human. With the recovery of his fever well underway, he admonished himself at thinking he could get more than one good thing at a time.

But what was that? He squinted up at the darkness, swearing to himself that he hadn’t seen anything. Some traitorous voice flickered within. He had seen something. It had looked bright.

And suddenly, the night sky burst into a myriad of shimmering stars.

Donghyuck gaped up at the sight. On the nights he walked home late from the food streets he’d look up at the skies. More often than not they’d be cloudy, but if he craned his neck he’d be able to spot one, three, maybe five stars if he was lucky. So this, this had to be a dream.

He stared into the brilliance of the stars in silence, feeling comfortingly small in the sublime.

\---

The music started on the seventh night, soft at first, then to a gentle, comfortable volume.

A neighbour living a few blocks down had a piano. It sounded something like this, but she played jazz, that Donghyuck knew at least, uneven rhythm sounding like something catching itself before it fell but still smiling brightly, the picture of performance despite its quirks. This one felt smoother, trilling up and down the scale.

He admitted felt it a little strange not seeing anything in the darkness the way he had the past few nights: a ladybug on a blade of grass, a puddle of small trees reaching way up high, a painting of the sunrise, a book of which the contents he could not for the life of him remember. The sea. It had been something about the sea.

Then Donghyuck frowned. The music seemed to beckon, like it was trying to tell him something. He listened closely.

The melody line had begun the piece, slow and hesitant in the major key. It was soon joined by another hand. It changed into a jaunty, cheery tune, and Donghyuck felt himself transported to the entrance of the food street he frequented, the night he had first gone. He had been awestruck by the neon signs hanging all around, and the sheer number of people. The place bustled, alive in a way he’d rarely seen. Maybe that was what had drawn him back, this time with a basket of chewing gum.

“Hey, boy!” An ahjumma street vendor he’d later come to know as Madam Kim had waved him over. “Aigoo, you’re so skinny. Come have a dumpling, my treat!”

Before he could say anything, she had placed a steaming mandu in his hands. Hurriedly, unsure what to do, he had bowed in thanks and run away. That night, his stomach had felt so warm. Around him, the music had continued to swell.

Donghyuck had wandered in a daze along the road, peering with undisguised fascination at all the different stands. He hadn’t heard of half the food items they’d sold. He must have been there hours before the flow of the crowd suddenly shifted, subtle until he realised how much the crowd around him had dwindled. Naturally, he had turned around and followed them. 

The piano picked up its pace, coursing with excitement and anticipation.

He had stopped short at the back of the crowd. Looking around him, everyone had their gazes trained to the night sky. He had looked, too. They didn’t have to wait long before the sky was filled with a dazzling array of colours, fires and explosions bursting into blazing flowers that hung suspended for a second before cascading down and disappearing into the night breeze.

Where the piano had been smooth before, the notes now seemed to jump with every beat. They danced in the air the way the fireworks had.

Donghyuck smiled as he opened his eyes. He hadn’t even remembered closing them. Somehow he liked this dream the best. He had seen a sight clearer than all the dreams before even though before him, the sky was the same sheet of blue it’s always been.

\---

The eight, nine, tenth night had a similar rhythm to them: sensation, then visual, then music. On the tenth, to Donghyuck’s delight, they started to merge.

The music started first like it usually did. Donghyuck quickly lost himself in the tune, each a different one than the day before. Something felt different about the ground though, and when he curled his fingers into fists they tightened around soft blades of grass.

He opened his eyes. He was no longer on the simple platform suspended in the sky, there was grass growing in the place of cool linoleum, and they swayed gently from side to side.

There was a soft sound beside him and Donghyuck snapped his head to the side. He found himself face to face with a cat.

She was beautiful, Donghyuck thought as it padded over. Reaching out a tentative hand he stroked her head gently and she purred. Under the stars (a fixture since that night), her mottled grey coat shone. Donghyuck wasn’t even aware when he started humming softly under his breath to match the music of the sky and cat.

\---

The twelfth night the cat had reappeared, this time with a puppy hot on its heels. Donghyuck had thrown the ball that had appeared in his hand again and again. No matter how far he’d throw it, both the animals always came back to him, ball within their teeth.

On the thirteenth night, Donghyuck found himself sitting in the branches of a tree, growing up from the familiar white platform. Its leaves were all gone. In his hands he held a picture.

It was a crude drawing or something he hadn’t seen before. Head shaped like a bean and a round, fat body with a small tail. It had ears like a dog and big eyes. From what Donghyuck could see, it didn’t have a mouth. Somehow, Donghyuck knew he didn’t draw this. It’s form and lines were too precise for him to produce.

“I drew it well, right?”

“I-Injun?” Donghyuck’s throat tightened and only a croak came out. He tried to say more, but his voice wouldn’t come out and he couldn’t speak.

Renjun? Was it really Renjun?

He craned his neck desperately into the higher branches of the tree where the voice seemed to come from, but the leaves obscured his sight. His hands were stuck fast to the branch he sat on, so he couldn’t push them out of the way.

Then he caught sight of a pair of legs in faded denim jeans and yellow converse shoes kicking in the breeze and memories came flooding back.

A long time back he had lived in Jeju with his parents, both of them. They had had a neighbour who had moved from China. Their son was his age, and they had gone to school together. Those were some of his most precious memories he didn’t allow himself to think about now.

Can you hear me? Donghyuck thought desperately. Where his throat used to be seemed like thin air, his voice box vanished.

“What are you saying, Donghyuck-ah? Of course I can hear you! And you better hear me now when I say your Moomin doesn’t look anything like Moomin! Aigoo Donghyuck-ah, the drawing I gave you was so nice, but yours is more like Picasso...I really don’t think the eye is supposed to be here...” 

At that, Donghyuck let out a huff of laughter. Renjun had always been teasing, with a sharp tongue and quick wit despite Korean being his second language. He had hit him when Renjun had suggested he call him ‘hyung’, which had sent them both down in a scuffle, laughing as they rolled together in the dirt. If Donghyuck had known how short a time they had together, maybe he would have called him hyung.

“Isn’t it nice to sit here together? Feels just like old times. It’s been so long hasn’t it? Do you still sing?”

No he didn’t. He didn’t really have a reason to.

“Aish, what a pity. I always said you should go audition for one of the big companies - I know you’d get in!”

Like real, Donghyuck thought dryly. I can’t even dance.

“Hey, hey, you’ll never know if you don’t try! Remember the way you did body-rolls to the radio they played during gym? Gosh, I wish I could buy eyes that have never seen that cursed image. For me, lately I’ve actually been starting to learn dance…”

They passed the night with this strange conversation. It came easily, and Donghyuck started to wonder how much of it would actually turn out to be real, and if Renjun had stayed in Korea or had gone back to China, and if he actually did start to take dance classes. 

Most of all, he wondered if Renjun really remembered him. While it might not have been real it did seem real, and as Renjun recalled their memories together Donghyuck’s chest felt warm. Even though he never did see the face that belonged to the voice, from the way he talked, Donghyuck just knew it had to be him.

\---

On the fourteenth night since Donghyuck started to count, he opened his eyes as he pushed his way into a small shop. Above him, a tiny bell jingled his entry.

He stood at the doorway and stared at the scene. It seemed Western, a cozy little shop with cushioned chairs and small, round wooden tables. An assortment of people lounged at these tables, some with laptops and some with thick textbooks, most sipping a drink of some type.

The walls were painted a deep green, and large curtains framed larger windows such that the place was bathed in a warm, golden glow. It wasn’t too hot or too cold. It was, as Donghyuck’s stomach seemed to say, the perfect temperature to enjoy a warm drink.

Money - Donghyuck removed his hand from his pocket and stared blankly at the note in his hand. It didn’t look like a Korean note. Looking up at the counter - it had rows of stands stacked with cakes and cookies bigger than his head, next to it a sign with the drinks menu printed in dainty script - he felt his stomach rumble.

If this was a dream, why not try his luck right? Donghyuck slid into the queue -

-Then he was at the counter already, marble cold under his fingertips. A girl in uniform smiled at him. “May I take your order?”

Mutely, Donghyuck gestured to the first drink on the chocolate menu at pointed to one of the frosted cakes in the jars. It had been a while since he had tasted chocolate.

“Coming right up,” the girl accepted Donghyuck’s money and passed him a number on a metal stand. “We’ll serve the food to you, so please take a seat.”

Dazedly, Donghyuck turned from the queue. He didn’t have to look around much to find a nice table tucked beside a wall of plants (were they fake?) and slid onto the wooden seat. The small vase of flowers had a subtle sweet scent. They kind of reminded Donghyuck of the eye he’d seen. He brushed his hand against the white petals. 

Then there was a loud coughing sound and Donghyuck looked around. From his seat he had the perfect view of a small elevated platform where a young man, smartly dressed, sat on a high stool holding a guitar. With his other hand he adjusted the microphone in front of him.

He started to play, voice a smooth baritone. Donghyuck sat enraptured, hardly noticing when a waitress brought his slice of cake and hot chocolate, setting them down soundlessly in front of him.

_“Like a tree that has been left alone...lonely and tired, look at the world of that person…”_

And then - did he imagine it? - the singer’s eyes met his. There was something strange about those eyes. The singer was handsome in a regal, bookish sort of way, but something about his eyes. They were brown, almost black, and large like a startled owl.

As soon as their eyes met the singer looked away. He didn’t look up for the rest of the song, and Donghyuck eventually turned his attention to the food in front of him. He took a tentative sip of his hot chocolate, perking up at the rich taste.

Immediately, he picked up his fork and cut off a slice of the cake. He could barely suppress and hum of delight at the burst of sweetness on his tongue.

Halfway through his slice of cake, he thought he noticed the shadows on the floor shift a little. A stab of panic pricked at his mind like a thorn. How much time had passed, how much time did he have left?

Each night, it got harder and harder to leave. The dreams had been getting more and more real and today, it seemed as if he weren’t huddled under his blanket, but that he was in some small cafe, in a place that wasn’t anywhere near where he was. Could he just stay here forever? Could he not wake up?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much for taking the time to read this! next chapter goes back to mark


	3. Empathy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> angst meter up up ty track, ty track
> 
> LETS GET IT
> 
> (therell be a happy ending dont worry :))
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: mild depictions of violence (and the trigger warning from chapter 1 applies too ><)

**EIGHT MONTHS LATER**

“Oh? He got a job?” Johnny peered over his clipboard. He frowned. “What kind?”

Mark set down the files he was helping Ten organise. “Don’t know, couldn’t find out much. You know how private he can be. It’s good though, the apartment’s finally being cleaned more than once every two weeks, and I think they finally paid the electricity bills.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Ah but hyung, I’ve literally never met someone so, so _adverse_ to this dreamstuff as this kid. Okay fine, a lot of the cases I’ve been reading up on aren’t easy either, and the other day Yukhei-hyung was telling me about this case Kun-hyung was having a hard time with, something about an obsessive bird feeder being accosted by the Jehovah’s witnesses.”

Johnny blinked, processing that last bit of information. “I mean, it’s to be expected, all things considered. Things may just be getting better though.”

Looking over his shoulder quickly, Mark leaned closer to Johnny. “I know that, but what I don’t get is how you managed to predict the thing!”

A raised eyebrow. “What thing?”

“True love is dead!” The two heard him before he appeared and soon enough, Ten came stumbling around the shelf, clutching a test tube maniacally. When he saw Johnny, he pointed an accusing finger, eyes rimmed red behind his laboratory goggles. Mark and Johnny’s gaze followed the finger as it swayed along with the person the finger belonged to.

“72 days,” Ten’s voice threatened to break. “How the _hell_ did you know?”

Johnny looked at Mark, slightly alarmed.

“The reality show?” Mark prompted. “You said two months.”

“Oh, that thing,” Johnny snorted. He shook his head in disapproval as he turned back to his work.

“What, no, you can’t just go back to your work like this, I need an explanation!” Came a distraught wail.

“Ten, it’s literally been like, six months.” Johnny sighed as Ten continued to wail. “He’s clearly not in any shape to do work today. Again. I’ll get him home. You can go off early, Mark. Get a drink or something before you find Jaehyun.”

“Really? Sweet!” Mark grinned. He gestured to the files beside him. “I’ll put this away first. Take care, Ten-hyung!”

After depositing the files in their place (he had been applying Taeil’s filing system to the lab, it was immaculately designed, to say the least), Mark tossed his coat over the peg, grabbed his bag, and ran up the stairs. 

It took him ten minutes to get from the lab to the small coffee shop opposite the library. The bell jingled cheerily as he stepped in. Approaching the counter, a familiar head of blond hair moving around behind the espresso machine came into view.

“Jungwoo-hyung!” Mark called.

The head of blond hair froze, and a face whipped around. “Mark!” Jungwoo smiled brilliantly, facial expression rearranging into a pout before Mark could even blink. “You don’t visit me anymore. You used to come by so often.”

“One latte macchiato please. I know, I know, I’m sorry hyung! I’ve been really busy these few months cause I got into some trouble, so it’s lab work and library work all day long.”

Jungwoo snorted as he started to make Mark’s usual order. “I know, I was really surprised when I heard. Mark Lee, getting into trouble? Now Yukhei I buy, I really do, but so far he’s not had a single scrap that’s relegated him to the lab dungeons. How’s it like with those two jokesters?”

Mark blinked for a second before remembering Jungwoo shared an apartment with the two. “They’re...alright. I actually got to visit you today because they let me off early.”

“....is it the stupid wedding thing again.”

“Mmhmm,” Mark shot a look of pity at the older Sandman. Must be hard putting up with those two. “Ten cried.”

“Sometimes Johnny knows too much for his own good,” Jungwoo said flatly. He handed Mark the paper cup, and gestured for him to take a seat at the counter. It was a quiet day with two other people sitting around the space, so Jungwoo would have time to chat. “And his mouth’s too big for his brain to catch up with.”

“Hyung’s really smart,” agreed Mark, missing the baleful look Jungwoo sent his way. Then Jungwoo propped his chin on his hands and smiled sweetly at Mark.

“Enough about my stupid roommates, how are you doing Mark? C’mon, you have to tell me everything.”

And so Mark told him, from meeting Donghyuck to how it was now. He told Jungwoo about the progress he had made in his studies, how Jaehyun had been guiding him. “I’ve been thinking of trying dreams with people in it,” he confessed shyly. “I know that’s one of the hardest skills to master, but honestly? I think people need it. Jaehyun says not many people specialise in that anymore, though.”

Jungwoo shrugged. “He’s right. We used to have one, around Doyoung’s generation. Never seen him around though.”

Mark perked up at that. “Oh? I didn’t know that. Jaehyun just told me about how much of a disaster it’d be if anyone saw my face but really, do people even remember faces they’ve dreamed about? I know I never did.”

There was a beat of comfortable silence between them as Mark took a sip of his coffee, smiling contentedly at the rich milky taste. “So, who was that Sandman you were talking about?”

Jungwoo let out a laugh and shrugged. “I don’t know, never seen him. Maybe Jaehyun does. We’re the same generation but he’s more...outgoing. Anyhow, you’d better watch the time Mark-ah, before you’re late. Shoo, shoo.” He all but shoved Mark off the stool, confiscating his barely finished cup.

“Really? I think I’ve got like, 5 more min-”

“That’s what you said the last time, and you were late.” Jungwoo said flatly as he gave the younger a shoved the younger towards door with a wave. “You should ask Jaehyun your questions, I’m not sure he’d appreciate my input. Drop by again soon, though?”

Mark was looking like a confused deer as he suddenly found himself seatless and coffee-less, but he still managed a smile and a nod, waving awkwardly at Jungwoo.

Sure enough, Mark was early. He frowned at the empty table as he dropped his bag into a chair. He was early, yeah, but Jaehyun was always earlier. Huh. Unless he was still checking out the archives? He hadn’t seen him at the counter when he had walked past it but there again he hadn’t really checked, so.

Yuta looked up and smiled cheerily as Mark approached. “Heya Mark.”

“Yuta-hyung,” Mark greeted. “Have you seen Jaehyun-hyung?”

“No?” Yuta thought for a while. “Have you tried messaging him?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that.” Mark grinned sheepishly. “I’ll go do that.”

Hurrying back to the table, Mark dug around for his phone and dialled Jaehyun’s number. He picked up after the third ring. “Hyung it’s me, Mark. Are you here yet?”

“More like are _you_ here yet,” Jaahyun replied dryly. He seemed faintly amused by something. “Are you at the library?”

“Yeah, why?”

Pause. “Did you forget today was review day?”

“Oh, sh -” Mark clasped a hand over his mouth as Jaehyun laughed. “I’ll be right there hyung!”

Mark smacked his cheeks and sighed. At least he probably had enough time to get there and not be too late. He made a mental note to thank Jungwoo for kicking him out of the cafe when he did, even if it was bad customer service.

“You know, normally I should be scolding you for taking calls inside of the library.” Mark whipped around to see Yuta standing with his arms folded. “But seeing how there’s not many people here right now I guess we can make an exception.”

“Ah hyung, thank you so much. I forgot it was review today and -” The relief in Mark’s voice melted off at Yuta’s expression, layered and...undecipherable. 

“You’re handling Donghyuck’s case right? I’ve been receiving your weekly reports.” Mark closed his mouth. That was one question answered, he guessed. Yuta fixed him with a hard look and Mark shrunk back instinctively. “Better handle it properly, got that?”

Mark blinked, mind racing for any indication he had or he had given Yuta that he hadn’t been taking his work seriously. He came up blank. “I will. Hyung, if there’s anything Jaehyun-hyung or Johnny-hyung have put in the reports that I didn’t know about -”

“Johnny.” Yuta muttered darkly. He narrowed his eyes and for a moment Mark was reminded of storm clouds that sagged black and blue on nights where lightning woke even the deepest dreamers. “No, nothing in the reports. I’m just making sure you’re clear on this is all.”

“Then why -”

Yuta raised an eyebrow. “You know that ‘U’ assignments have the lowest success rates right?”

Mark nodded mutely. He was well aware, had spent the first few days unable to sleep because he was so worried that something might happen to Donghyuck. On those days it would be Jaehyun who found him moping on the couch. He’d make Mark a cup of warm chamomile tea and usher him back to sleep, or accompany him as he mindlessly marathoned Spongebob Squarepants to calm down.

“Don’t take ‘U’ assignments lightly and don’t mess that kid up. Promise.” Yuta’s eyes were stones and Mark swallowed down his questions.

“I won’t, hyung. I promise.”

“Good.” Yuta’s brow cleared and Mark felt the stifling weight lift from his chest. “I mean it, Mark. Hurry before you’re too late.”

People seemed to be hurrying him a lot today, weren’t they? He was their youngest operative, sure, but Mark had faith in his work ethic: honest and hard work would prepare him for what he needed to do.

Even taking off at a sprint, Mark took just under ten minutes to reach the laboratory building. Idly, he wondered how Ten and Johnny were doing as he took the stairs three at a time, coming up panting on the fifth floor. Running down the rightmost corridor he slid to a stop four doors down. He took a deep breath to compose himself and knocked gently before stepping inside.

“How’d you end up at the library? Weren’t you with Johnny and Ten this evening?” Jaehyun asked quizzically when Mark had taken the empty seat beside him. Jaehyun had already collected the set of seven films to be screened.

“They let me off early today,” Mark explained. “So I went to Jungwoo’s to get a coffee before heading over the library.”

Jaehyun made a noise of understanding. “Well, you know how to set this up, right?”

Mark nodded and focused his attention on the machine in front of him, plugging the wires and flicking switches quickly. It was a dream machine, but less highly-powered than Johnny’s. Most Sandmen couldn’t take the dizziness that came with complete immersion. This model, with partial immersion and projection functions was actually quite an old model, but it worked as a trainee’s learning tool.

Methodologically, Mark worked down the seven films with Jaehyun. Midway through the second, Jaehyun waved at him to pause the video. A familiar face stared back from the front of a crowd gathered in a European-esque city square, watching a street performer juggle, a small band playing in the back. “Mark, how many times have I seen my face in this?”

“Uh, twice?” Mark sounded unsure. “The other time was the cafe one. I promise I don’t do it that often but we needed someone with like, calming vibes.”

“Calming vibes,” repeated Jaehyun. The corners of his mouth were quirked up.

Mark gave a nervous laugh. “C’mon hyung, there’s only a fixed number of faces I’ve seen? And Donghyuck too. I thought it would be okay though, since he’s never seen your face before, it’ll just be a gap in his memory right?”

Jaehyun hummed and gestured for him to continue. Before Mark resumed the screen, he swore he heard Jaehyun mutter _calming vibes, that’ll show Doyoung_ under his breath. He hid a smile from the elder.

When they had finished all seven, Jaehyun stretched his arms and yawned. He smiled at Mark. “You know, I had some doubts when you wanted to use more dreams with people given how many details you’ve got to get right.”

“You’re one to speak about details hyung!” It was true, Jaehyun specialised in creating what he called ‘sense of place’ and what Ten called ‘too much Miyazaki’, a reference that sent Mark laughing but unfortunately had flown straight over Jaehyun’s head. Every scene in a person’s dream would be filled with small knick-knacks, detailed to perfection. Mark’s seen his planning sketchbooks once or twice, and the quality of some of them really blew him away. Many of his sketches were filed away in the library archives for new operatives to study for inspiration. “You should be an artist.”

“Nah, art’s not for me. It’s not the same as people where it can be so easy to detect something just a little out of place. Which is why I told you -”

“‘If you’re not willing to work hard and give your all do animals or something else instead.” Mark dutifully recited. Kun specialised in animals, so did Yukhei. Often times the mentee would follow the speciality of the mentor, but it wasn’t mandated, so Jaehyun had preferred to let Mark choose instead. Kun had as well, but Lucas thought the sun shone from Kun’s entire well, being.

Jaehyun ruffled Mark’s hair, earning an indignant squawk from the younger. “I’ve trained you well, young padawan.”

Which reminded Mark of something. “Johnny-hyung says they’re probably gonna do a new trilogy in a few years.” He giggled at Jaehyun’s face, looking like he had eaten a lemon.

The older Sandman huffed. “Didn’t they butcher the last one? People can’t leave good things be.”

“Or maybe they’ll do it right this time,” Mark teased as he grabbed his bag. Opening it, he took out a sheet of paper and passed it to Jaehyun. “You can stop hounding me, hyung, here’s my essay proposal.”

A snort. “Finally, after all the time I’ve spent chasing -”

“Not really…”

“My son’s growing up,” Jaehyun pretended to cry and wipe tears from his eyes. “After your essay, you’ll just have your reviews and then, and then -”

“Hyung just take the paper already,” Mark’s cheeks blazed red with embarrassment. Even if he was starting his essay a little earlier it just meant he had more time to work on it, is all. 

“You just want to graduate early.” Jaehyun retorted, taking the paper from Mark’s hands. He scanned through it. “Oh?”

Mark fiddled awkwardly with his bag strap. “While reading the archives I just found an interesting topic, so I thought you know, why not go for it? Maybe it’ll help me answer your question.”

Jaehyun hummed as he brought his eyebrows back to their normal positions. “This is pretty good actually. It’s not like it’s never been done before, but this angle you’re choosing will fill in the gap you’ve identified.”

“You think so?” Mark beamed happily at Jaehyun. First, Donghyuck’s father had gotten a job, the light bills had been paid, and Mark had seen a school uniform hanging from the back of his bedroom door. Second, this. “If you hadn’t started me on the ‘U’ archives I’d never have found this topic.”

“Remember to cite me in your acknowledgements then,” winked Jaehyun. Then his face crumpled again. “My son, all grown up -”

“Hyung, if you don’t stop that I’m leaving for patrol without you.”

\---

Mark wasn’t really sure when he had started to talk to Donghyuck. When it came to voices talking it would probably be that time he had put Donghyuck in that tree together with a name that Donghyuck’s subconscious seemed to think about often - Injun? Renjun? But even then it hadn’t really been Mark, he’d sat and watched the dream go by in the space above Donghyuck’s head, monitoring his adrenaline and other hormone levels with his phone to create an optimum dreaming experience.

Jaehyun often told him he had the habit of murmuring when he did his work, receiving a few elbow jabs from his hyung when they were at the library. Perhaps it had started with the “Ah, you’re feeling better now, huh?” the day Donghyuck’s fever had broken. Maybe it had been a casual “Sleep well, Donghyuck-ah,” as Mark had withdrawn for the night.

In the months since the start, the boy seemed to have grown a lot. Now, he was looking more his age of fifteen than the skinny, underfed child Mark had found that night all those months back.

Sometime in the first month his father had seemingly gotten a job. He too seemed to have fallen through the cracks of the system and had been reassigned to Mark. Probably drinking too much, Jaehyun had theorised. Sometimes it happened - too many nights blackout drunk and he was lost amidst the incoming waves of data. It’s happened before, apparently. 

Though all of them had been sceptical at first the job had, thankfully, proven stable in the recent months. The house even gotten new wallpaper. When school term started again, Donghyuck had a set of uniform hanging behind his door on the weekdays.

So Mark had to grit his teeth and give him the dreamsand. Strictly professional, he’d tell himself. He’d say it with his chin lifted high that he never did shortchange the man on what he had the duty to give. But he never gave him more, either.

“Yah Donghyuck-ah, it’s me again,” Mark greeted as he sat cross-legged beside the boy. He didn’t notice the way Donghyuck’s feet started approaching the ends of the mattress, or the way his skin had started to take a golden brown tan. Eyelashes fanned across filled cheeks, Mark thought he looked so restful in sleep. “You’ve started going to school again, huh? I wonder how it’s been so far. Are you eating well? Have you made friends?”

Donghyuck’s sleeping form didn’t reply. Mark glanced up and saw him laughing along with two boys as they played soccer in a field. His mouth opened in a silent laugh. Mark willed himself to listen in on what they were saying.

“Oi Donghyuck! Pass the ball already!”

Dream-Donghyuck turn around slowly, eyes dramatically wide open. “Yah, Chenle, I’m still older than you!”

“Doesn’t matter if you suck at soccer!” The other boy who wasn’t Chenle grinned devilishly.

“What? Park Jisung, what did you say? Don’t cry when I win later, okay?”

Chenle snorted. “Won’t happen, but you can try!”

Mark felt his lips quirk up into a wide smile. He had found friends, after all, even if they were mischievous dongsaengs. And his laughter - Mark thought back to Donghyuck lying twisted and covered in sweat in the sheets, coughing so hard Mark was sure his lungs would fly out soon - and decided that it was his favourite sound in the world right now.

“I’m glad for you, Donghyuck-ah,” Mark whispered. “I miss playing soccer with my friends too. Did you know that even during winter - in Canada, mind you - we’d still meet up to play? Do you think if we had known each other, we could have been friends, too? Maybe you’d be to me the way Chenle is to you. No respect at all for your elders.”

Donghyuck let out a groan in his sleep as dream-Donghyuck lost another point to a giggling Jisung, Chenle screaming with a voice so loud and high-pitched it almost couldn’t be human. Dream-Donghyuck gave up on soccer after that, choosing to chase Chenle and Jisung around the field. Mark smiled fondly. “Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, huh?”

\---

The next day, Mark was headed to the library as usual. Since they shared the library with the WayV unit and Yukhei had been free that day, Mark and Yukhei had dropped by Jungwoo’s cafe before heading over to meet with their mentors. The two entered by the back door of the cafe and walked around to the counter where Jungwoo was serving another customer. Catching their eye, Jungwoo visibly lit up.

After the customer had taken his tray of coffee and a fluffy-looking cinnamon roll, Mark and Yukhei wandered over. Yukhei’s gaze was trained hungrily on the receding cinnamon roll. 

Before Jungwoo could open his mouth, Mark plonked a paper bag onto the counter. “For you.”

“Me?” Jungwoo’s mouth was comically wide as he pointed a finger to his chest. At Mark’s shy nod he quickly grabbed the bag over. His grin spread even wider as he drew out a small jar of frosted cookies. “Did you make these?”

Mark nodded. “I was making a batch for Ten-hyung for dropping his flasks. Thought I’d give some to you since you were the reason I wasn’t late for my review the other day. There’d be more cookies if someone-” Mark glared pointedly at Yukhei, who had to grace to turn red- “hadn’t eaten the rest of the cookie dough.”

“What is the purpose of cookie dough?” Yukhei proclaimed with a long-suffering sigh. Long-suffering because he had repeated this line of reasoning at least three times already but Mark still hadn’t bought it. “It’s meant to be _eaten_. I am merely following the natural order.”

“Yeah, eaten after they’re baked,” Mark retorted. “See - now Jungwoo-hyung doesn’t have cookies.”

“It’s okay, I don’t mind.” Jungwoo flashed an indulgent smile. “Thank you for the cookies, Mark. I’ll eat them well.”

This particular sugar cookie aside, Mark was a tragically pathetic cook. He’d once set off the fire alarm while frying an egg and had been banned from cooking anything ever since. Kun imposed it, and Jaehyun enforced it. Yukhei, on the other hand, had tried many times to get him to sneak in an attempt. Under the collective watchful eye of the older operatives, it never did happen.

Baking was different, though. Mark first made a batch for Ten after the incident with Donghyuck months ago.

“These are so good, where have you been hiding them all these months?” Ten had said incredulously, mouth full of half-eaten cookie. “If this is what I get for helping rookies I’ll become the most generous person you’ll ever see.”

“My mum used to stress bake,” Mark had explained. “This was about the only recipe I picked up.” 

After that, it became a regular monthly thing for Mark to bake a set of cookies and distribute it to his hyungs. Most went to Ten and Johnny. Mark tended to break glassware if he so much as spaced out a little bit. Once he had broken three glass rods in a day, and Ten had looked like he was going to cry.

Yukhei had ordered a caramel frappuccino and Mark had gotten his usual order of latte. They didn’t have to wait long before Jungwoo carried their drinks over to the counter. “Not staying today?”

“Can’t, sorry hyung!” Mark apologised. “Next time we’ll come earlier and chat!”

Jungwoo waved them to the door. “No worries, you two, thanks for dropping by. Work hard!”

“Will do!” Mark yelled as the door swung shut after them. He took one look at the monstrous amount of whipped cream on Yukhei’s drink and huffed. “I’ll never get why you’re Jungwoo’s favourite dongsaeng. That amount of cream is enough to kill a man.”

“What can I say, I’m just naturally charming,” Yukhei sighed as he licked the cream off his straw with a loud slurp. “No one can resist me.”

Mark snorted. “Let’s go before Kun scolds you for being late again. Jaehyun told me to be early today.”

The two hurried past blocks in the cool June air. Over the tops of buildings they could see the orange tint of the sky that would slowly dye itself blue, then they would head out. Once they had ascended the library steps the glass doors slid open smoothly. They waved quickly to Yuta at the desk. At the counter, Kun looked up in surprise. 

“Yukhei, Mark.” He greeted, eyeing them suspiciously. “You’re....early today.”

Yuta laughed and gave Kun a friendly smack on the shoulder. “You may be a division head but you still gotta deal with this brat, huh?”

“He sure does,” Yukhei grinned as he pranced over to Kun who pushed away his attempt to hug him, eliciting a whine from the younger.

“If he didn’t take his work seriously that would actually be a problem,” Kun grumbled to Yuta and Mark, but his words clearly had no bite. “He may be a brat but he’s actually more capable than he gives himself credit for.”

Yukhei gasped. “Mark, did you hear that? Kun praised me!”

“Those are rare,” Mark hummed. He agreed with Kun. No matter what image Yukhei might put up as being a complete idiot, only an actual idiot would buy that. Some days Mark would stumbled to the kitchen for a drink and see Yukhei’s room lights switched on, busy studying. Those hadn’t been days before tests, either. 

“Right. See you later Marknae!” Yukhei raised a hand in a quick wave as Mark turned to go.

Past the shelves, Mark located Jaehyun almost immediately. He slipped into his usual seat. Jaehyun looked up from the report he had been reading. “Sup, Mark.”

“Jaehyun-hyung.” Mark tried to peer at the documents Jaehyun was poring over. “What’s that?”

“A good case study for you.” Jaehyun handed the file over. Mark scanned the title and nodded, eyebrows raised. Jaehyun cleared his throat. “Anyway, we’re here a little earlier cause I have something to tell you.”

Mark looked up from the document. “Is it the project you’ve been assigned to?”

Jaehyun blinked. “How did you know?”

“Doyoung-hyung,” Mark smiled sheepishly. “I ran into him last night and he patted me on the back saying he understood how difficult it was when one’s mentor first left for a different project. Then I told him you hadn’t said anything and he gave that smile, you know, that one he makes when he knows he’s made a mistake?”

The elder Sandman nodded seriously. Doyoung’s lemon-sucked face was quite well known, after one particular incident at a division dinner when he and Johnny had had some face-off. Mark still had nightmares about the way Johnny had stared Doyoung to the ground as he had slowly dragged his front teeth over his lips in a way that sent a shiver down Mark’s spine. Doyoung had turned away with such a frozen expression that Ten had snorted his soju through his nose and Mark had choked on his.

Jaehyun rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe you thought he was scary when you first met him. Look at him. Gosh, that face. I didn’t need to be reminded of it.”

“C’mon hyung be fair - I was scared of everyone when I first met them. Even Yukhei and look how that one turned out.”

Jaehyun considered this. Fair point.

“I think Doyoung-hyun was exaggerating,” Mark continued hopefully. “You don’t need to worry about me, hyung, just go and do your assignment well.”

“It’ll only be for five days.” Jaehyun finally said. “Nothing’s going to be much different.”

Mark hummed in assent. “Where are you going anyway?”

“America.”

“Oh?” Mark blinked. “All the way there?”

Jaehyun rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s some conference. With more Koreans moving to America Taeyong and some American operatives are working one establishing a temporary unit to help with the transition, especially for the first generation. Other than you and Johnny I’m the best English speaker, so.”

“Johnny speaks English?”

“Yeah man. The last time they had a conference he went, couldn’t stop talking about Chicago.”

Mark learned something new about his hyungs every day. “Maybe when I’m more experienced they can send me too.”

“It’s really quite interesting. The dreams of every country are so different.” Jaehyun gestured to the space in the shelves where Yuta had just walked past. “You know Yuta’s actually Japanese, right? You should ask him about it.”

Mark blinked at the empty space. Something uncomfortable stirred in his stomach. “Hyung, I forgot to tell you this and I don’t know if it’s important or anything but the other day when I forgot it was review and I came to the library, Yuta-hyung was acting kinda weird.”

Jaehyun blinked and sat up. His voice was low when he replied, “What do you mean ‘weird’? Did he do anything to you?”

“No? He...he just told me to take care of Donghyuck properly is all.” Mark shifted uncomfortably under Jaehyun’s steady gaze. “Actually though, he was quite aggressive? About it?”

Jaehyun stared at him silently for a few seconds. He leaned back and sighed. “You should have told me about this earlier.”

“Sorry, hyung. I forgot about it for a while.” Mark apologised meekly. “Is...is it something serious?”

His mentor considered this for a moment before waving his hand dismissively. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with. Don’t worry about it. We better get started.”

\---

Another day, dream-Donghyuck had stood by the beach with his two friends. Renjun had been there too. They held sparklers around a campfire and danced under the cool night air, surrounded by the ocean breeze.

“You know Donghyuck-ah,” Mark had sighed wistfully. “I’m the youngest Sandman, can you believe it? Technically Yukhei and I are the same age, I guess, but also not really. He’s somehow older? By a few years? Age is really weird where I’m from. My eldest hyung looks 25 but is over a hundred years old. Crazy, huh?”

He had once commented to Jaehyun that Taeyong looked like he’d stepped out of Final Fantasy. Jaehyun had cocked his head and considered it for a while before sighing about their generation gap.

“Well,” Mark had quickly googled it on his phone and turned to phone screen to him. “You can see the resemblance, right?”

Jaehyun had blinked slowly, grabbing the phone. “A game, you say? When I was your age we barely had radio!”

“You can keep up with pop culture like Ten-hyung does,” Mark had offered. “I’m sure it’ll be quite cool.”

His mentor had hummed thoughtfully before directing his attention back to his work. At first, Mark wasn’t sure how seriously Jaehyun had taken that suggestion but a few weeks later, Jaehyun had announced that he had finally installed Netflix on the television. How they managed to get Netflix up above the clouds was a mystery, but not one Mark was complaining about.

At the memory of Jaehyun’s face, completely serious as he watched his first episode of Spongebob Squarepants, Mark huffed a laugh. “For how much my mentor feels like an older brother I’ve never had, it’s not the same as someone your age, you know? Yukhei’s in a different division so it’s not like we see each other that often.” He considered this for a while before correcting himself. “Okay, so maybe you and I aren’t the same age exactly, but at least we’re kind of in the same millenium, you know? But talking to Taeyong is like talking to someone from a period drama.”

Donghyuck turned in his sleep to face Mark, and Mark liked to think that Donghyuck was somehow listening to him, too.

Hang on, if Donghyuck was 16 now...Donghyuck’s information folder, getting longer by the day, flashed in Mark’s mind. He was born in 2000. Mark felt his brain short circuit. Even _Donghyuck_ was from a different millenium.

No way. No way that kids born in the 2000s were already in middle school. He held up his hands and stared as he counted them again and again. 

A sudden chuckle made Mark’s eyes snap open in shock. “Yah Mark-ah….is this why you’re always back so late? You’re so cute, what the hell…”

“Johnny-hyung,” Mark hissed back, face burning red. “This isn’t what you think, I read a paper that said that an operative’s presence would deter other humans from entering the room, and I thought his father -”

Johnny snorted. “Chill, Mark. I’m not accusing you of being a criminal or anything, gosh. You’re as skittish as a deer.”

Jaehyun never said anything like this, but there again Jaehyun hadn’t been sitting in front of screens monitoring the dreams that Mark himself was watching. And Jaehyun was across the world, somewhere near the place Mark had used to live in himself. It would still be a few days before he would be back, which meant that Mark was stuck with Johnny on the intercom.

“The research paper -”

“I know the research paper,” laughed Johnny. “Did you see who wrote it?”

The dream played on in the background, sounds only Mark and Donghyuck could hear and with him distracted, it was left to only Donghyuck.

“Yah hyung, what’cha looking at?” dream-Chenle prodded Donghyuck’s shoulder. Getting his attention, the older turned his head back from where he had been peering at the shadowed places outside the light from their campfire.

Dream-Donghyuck shrugged. “Dunno. Felt like someone was there.”

“Oh? Was it scary?” dream-Jisung looked like he was about to make a run for it there and then.

Donghyuck scratched the back of his neck. “No? Feels like I’ve known him for a while, actually.”

\---

“Dreams that affect reality?” Johnny furrowed his brow. “Of course they do.”

It had been three days since Jaehyun had left for America and Johnny’s voice had replaced his on Mark’s intercom. Other than Johnny’s penchant for interjecting comments during Mark’s patrol, everything else was pretty much the same.

“They alter mood, emotions, recall memories. Dreamsand’s suppose to wear off in the passage of sleep to wakefulness, but I think they do more than that, hyung. Back when you were...y’know, didn’t you have dreams that you remembered years after they happened?”

Johnny hummed and gestured. _Go on._

“So I was thinking, also ‘cause I’ve been reading a lot of the ‘U’ archives, there’s got to be times where dreams have strong impacts on people’s lives. Like, change-their-outlook kind of impact.” Mark smiled hopefully at his senior. “What do you think?”

To his surprise, Johnny gave a huff of laughter. “Honestly, I’m surprised no one has done their essay on this topic before. For all the archives we have, most operatives are too busy with their work to go into research. Ten over there,” Johnny waved vaguely to some smoke rising from behind bookshelves. “Is more on the chemical basis, as you know. Dream research really is underdeveloped.”

Mark nodded. “Yeah?”

“I say go for it,” Johnny said. “See if you can get more funding into research as it is. I don’t care about ‘not messing with the sand’, scientific method blah blah. Someone needs to tell Taeyong that there’s other things beside the ‘feel’ of dreamcraft.”

“Why don’t you do it hyung?”

“Well, I suppose that’s my failing,” Johnny mused. “But nah. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Overhauling this massive system would be hell. Sometimes all you need is a singular understanding of things to carry you through. Assuming that understanding is okay.”

Mark scratched the back of his neck. “The first question they ask, huh. Jaehyun-hyung asked me something like that too, said to answer him before I graduate. To define a dream. Honestly, at first I thought like, man, this is easy, you know? But now I realised it can’t be that straightforward.”

Johnny nodded sagely. “It is a time-honoured question we’re asked during our trainee days. And you know Jaehyun wouldn’t continue that if he didn’t think it was worth something.”

“Yeah, he wouldn’t.” Mark thought for a while. “Well, what about you, hyung?”

“Me?”

“How was your trainee period like?” Mark asked. “How did you answer that question?”

“You know I can’t tell you that,” Johnny snorted. “Anyway, that was so long ago I don’t remember much about it.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re old,” sang Mark, dodging Johnny’s half-hearted swipe at him. He had misjudged the space, though, and hit his back against one of Johnny’s other screens. Rubbing his back, he turned and squinted at it. “Eh, I haven’t seen this before. What’s this, hyung?”

“Huh?” Johnny lifted his head and blinked a few times. “Oh, that. It’s something to help track incoming operatives.”

Mark took a closer look at the screen. “It looks blank to me.”

“That’s cause it is.” Johnny shrugged as Mark stared at him. “It’s like that sometimes. Face it Mark, you’re gonna be our maknae for quite a while.”

The younger groaned. “You know, I’ve never had a younger brother but I really, really wanted one. Honestly, I kinda not really thought about there being new operatives, but I think that’s what it’ll be like. Wait, wait. One day I’ll get a mentee of my own. A mentee!”

“Uh-huh,” Johnny laughed as Mark’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Hopefully you’ll get a good one.”

Mark paused. “Of course they will be. The bond, right?”

“Not everyone’s like you and Jaehyun though. You’ve never argued even once, it’s ridiculous. Ten’s mentor was Doyoung.”

Mark’s jaws dropped as Ten strolled into sight. “No way. Doyoung? Ten? Really?”

Doyoung was so serious, and Ten was so...Ten was so…

“Oh, I annoyed him a lot,” Ten grinned brightly as he sauntered over. “This one time he asked me to get coffee.”

Mark could already see where this was going. “No. Don’t tell me you ordered something bitter.”

“Americano, four shots, no sugar,” Ten winked. “He never made me buy a drink again.”

Mark gaped. “How are you still _alive_?”

Johnny snorted. “Don’t be fooled, Mark. You haven’t seen Doyoung when he’s being savage. Believe me when I say that man’s savage with a capital S. Honestly? That pair was a pretty good match.”

Mark considered this for a while, staring Ten up and down. “Actually, that makes a lot of sense.”

Ten gave Mark a friendly smack on the shoulder to get his attention, fixing him with the largest pair of puppy eyes in the world. “Why are you looking at your hyung like that?”

“Nothing, it actually does though - oh my, Ten-hyung! Stop scaring me like that!”

Johnny gave a low whistle. “I’ve never seen someone react that badly since Taeyong. Mark, please get off the floor, it’s really gross, we haven’t cleaned it in like, ten years.”

Once he did recover (Ten had cackled, actually cackled), he’d quickly finished his work for the day and Johnny waved him off. Nothing better to do and not wanting to head to the library that soon, he decided to go visit Jungwoo’s.

He’d have maybe five minutes to chat if he made it there early, Mark mused. He was halfway across the front lobby when he heard footsteps approaching. He turned around to find Ten sliding to a stop behind him, panting lightly.

“You’re going to the library right? Could you do your hyung a big favour?” Ten grinned brightly, and something in Mark started to dread what was about to come. 

“Sure,” he replied hesitantly.

Ten’s smile grew bigger. “Nice! I need some papers from the archives but I need to finish today’s replicates - here’s the list - could you help me grab them from the back room? This one’s on one of the higher floors, so take my pass and bring both back tomorrow when you come in.”

“Yeah, of course.” Mark breathed a sigh of relief as he quickly scanned through the list of five items on the sticky note, written in Ten’s messy scrawl. The last time Ten had asked him to bring stuff to the lab it had involved cockroach feelers and some other bugs, not to mention the next three days of Ten screaming every time he thought he saw the dead insects move. Even thinking about it sent goosebumps up his arm. He folded the note carefully and stuffed it with the pass into his sling bag. 

Ten ruffled Mark’s hair, earning a squawk from the younger as he desperately tried to duck out of reach. “Best maknae ever!” he sang cheerfully as he bounded back down to the lab.

By the time he had gotten to Jungwoo’s shop, he had managed to get his ruffled hair mostly back into shape. The place was much quieter today. Jungwoo had been leaning against the counter watching the door like a hawk and saw Mark from across the street.

After Jungwoo had settled him down by the counter with a frothy cup of steaming latte, he dragged a chair to sit on the opposite side.

“Are you allowed to have a chair over there?” Mark inquired, stirring his coffee. He gestured at the coffee machines. “Won’t it get in the way or something?”

“The way of what? It’s only me in here.”

“Hm.” Mark grunted. He took a deep whiff of his coffee and sighed contentedly. 

“You only come here for the coffee. How about me?” Jungwoo pouted, staring up from behind long eyelashes. He had asked Mark this question many times before, but it still sent him into a furious blush as he stuttered out an excuse. Jungwoo continued to stare, unimpressed, as Mark began choking on his coffee. “Kidding, kidding. Don’t die on me, Jaehyun will cry.”

“You know I wouldn’t stay if I didn’t like talking to you,” Mark replied after gaining his composure.

Jungwoo hummed. “So, what’ve you been doing lately? How’s life without Jaehyun?”

Mark made a face. “Kinda weird, actually. I’m at the labs more and more often nowadays. Being in the library’s kind of lonely. And I’m writing my report you know, starting to structure and outline and it’s got me pretty stumped.”

“It’s like that,” Jungwoo nodded in understanding. “I remember writing mine.”

“Oh?” Mark perked up. “What did you write about, hyung?”

“I remember writing it, but I don’t remember the exact contents,” Jungwoo grinned as Mark groaned. “It’s been a while since I’ve read it. And I know Jaehyun doesn’t want you looking at past reports, so you can’t go find them in the library. Or well, you can, but you won’t.”

“Oh yeah? Maybe I already have.” Mark challenged.

Jungwoo blinked slowly at him, reminding Mark vaguely of an owl. “Nah. I know you.”

The younger huffed. “Fine, fine. I haven’t. Gosh, I get what Jaehyun means when he talks about not being influenced but it would be so much easier to bounce my ideas off someone, you know?”

“Honestly? I do. I had Jaehyun, Ten, and Yuta with me when I did mine. We did proofreading for each other and without their help I may not even have graduated.”

“You read Yuta’s essay? What was his about?” He knew Jaehyun’s topic of course, since he had used it to show Mark the structure of the report. Ten he could guess after reading a lot of the elder’s body of work. But Yuta was more of a mystery.

Jungwoo was silent for a long time, and just as Mark was about to ask him if he was alright, he shook his head to clear it, as if come to a decision. “I really can’t talk about that one, I’m sorry Mark. Just know that Yuta doesn’t have the easiest path.”

Mark’s brow was creased as he stared back at his hyung. “What do you mean by that?”

Jungwoo just shook his head. “Don’t let our generation’s problems affect your generation, Mark-ah. You’ll have enough worries of your own.”

Mark’s mind flashed back to the weeks and months spent alone, him and Jaehyun, at the large central hall of the library, a few Sandmen milling around at times. The rows of long, wooden desks and chairs looked like they had been built for many more, and Mark had often wondered how it would be growing up with two, even three more trainees like Jungwoo had. Would they discuss their assignments together? Practice sandcraft?

There was Yukhei, that was true, but WayV conducted their training somewhere different almost all of the time. Mark knew Yukhei had a fellow trainee under Sicheng - Yang Yang? - and not to mention another trainee following Hendery. Mark didn’t. He bit his lip.

“Oh, Mark,” Jungwoo softened as he caught sight of Mark’s face. He supposed he must have looked quite bad and hurriedly tried to rearrange his expression but too late, Jungwoo had already seen it. “You arrived too early, didn’t you?”

\---

When Mark walked through the sliding glass doors, he was surprised to see Taeil at the counter instead of Yuta. Greeting him with a polite bow, he asked, “Taeil-hyung, where did Yuta-hyung go?”

Taeil gave Mark a measured look. “He’s busy with a project in the back so he won’t be here for a while.”

Mark blinked. “A project?”

“Can I help you with anything?” Taeil seemed not to have heard Mark’s question. “Do you need more copies from the archives?”

“Yes please.” Mark sighed as he envisioned yet another day of writing reports and analyses of past cases while integrating them with his current assignments. There wasn’t a Jaehyun to banter with. “Oh, and Ten-hyung asked me to collect these.” He presented the sticky note to Taeil.

Taeil squinted at Ten’s chicken scratch handwriting. “You’ll find those in the back room upstairs. He gave you his pass?” Mark nodded. “Just scan those out using the computer upstairs. You don’t have to fill up forms. I’ll leave your files on the counter to collect after you’ve grabbed those.”

“Thanks hyung!” With that, he headed upstairs.

In the middle of the library, just past the rows of bookshelves and just before the study hall, stood a wooden spiral staircase. The first time Mark had walked up he hadn’t believed his eyes. Encompassing the stairs as it ascended to a height he couldn’t see even as he climbed, were floors and floors of shelves. To each level a bridge branched out from the main staircase to a door; the rest of space besides was secured with netting. The more Mark ascended the more it seemed like it would never end.

These were where all the records from time immemorial were kept. Those on the first floor were the past 30 years, and every floor after that was for the next fifty. After each century Taeil would employ the help of another division that had magic in their fingers, to add a new floor between the first and where the rest would begin. Then the cycle would start anew.

Mark quickly ran up to the second story, cursing at the ungodly amount of stairs - the ceilings were ridiculously high - and tapped his pass against the scanner. The light above the door beeped green and Mark pulled open the door and walked in.

Thanks to Taeil’s impeccable filing he quickly found the first file. He ran his finger down the spine and it came back grey with dust. Hm.

Mark gave it an experimental tug. It didn’t budge.

Wedging his finger in the spine he pulled harder. When it had slid out a tiny bit more he grabbed it with the fingers on both his hands and _pulled_ and -

-The whole thing erupted out in a cloud of dust. Mark went crashing into the shelf behind clutching at the folder.

Hacking away, Mark tried to wave the dust out of his face and succeeded in causing more of it to fly up his nose. He sneezed.

...Damn it.

Half an hour later he emerged from the room, all five folders in hand and feeling the onset of allergies from the building pressure in his nose and forehead. Taeil heard his sneezes before he saw his feet hurriedly making their way down the stairs and stifled a laugh.

Mark collected his own files from Taeil and settled himself down in his usual corner. He was about to flip open a file when one of Ten’s documents caught his eye. Dragging it over, he flipped it open to the first page.

“‘The Dreamer and the Dreamer’s Space: How We Meet in Dreams Volume 2,’” Mark read. Curiosity piqued, he scanned through the summary page. He turned the page. Then the next, and the next, till he was so thoroughly engrossed he didn’t realise the alarm he had set to pack up by had started to vibrate in his pocket.

He dismissed the alarm. Staring guiltily at the archives he hadn’t looked through at all, Mark reassured himself that he had at least had the next month of dreams scheduled out for all his assignments. For small children planning ahead wasn’t that generally thought of as that crucial but Jaehyun insisted on good practice from the start. For Donghyuck it was essential.

Mark flipped back to the front page of Ten’s document. He read through the title a few times, hoping to ingrain it in his memory so he could borrow it some time in the future. Realising something, he quickly whipped out his phone to take a snapshot of the reference number. Much better.

Clicking to see if it had turned out clearly Mark paused. He zoomed in and stared again.

“Johnny Seo?” Mark tilted his head, considering the name. Man, his hyungs were _old_.

Gosh, one day he’d be that old. Maybe someday, a trainee would sit in this exact seat, reading a copy of something Mark had written centuries before. Then maybe that trainee would head out to Jungwoo’s coffee shop and see Mark himself, looking barely a day over twenty. Maybe they’d even have coffee together.

Mark shook his head to clear his thoughts. He was still thinking in human time, Jaehyun often had to remind him not too. He wasn’t human anymore, after all. None of them were.

Gathering the files in his arms, he stared up as he walked below the grand staircase at the ceiling that seemed to go on forever, a column of clouds tunneling on to an eternal end. Idly, he wondered how much he would know by the time he spent a hundred years here.

\---

Most of the night passed by in a breeze and before he knew it, Mark found himself by Yuna’s bedside. She always was the last stop before he’d head to Donghyuck’s

“Yuna-ah, I’m sorry I can’t give you much sense of smell in your dream today,” Mark smiled apologetically. The dust from earlier was so stubborn, no matter how he sneezed it seemed like it would never end. Probably taking the opportunity to get out of their spot in the library which they’d been in for goodness knows how long.

Mark grinned thinking about opportunistic dust. Jaehyun would like that one. 

“Something without smell for today?” Mark pictured Kun’s study, walls covered in paintings of animals so lifelike Mark was still somewhat certain they were photos. He thought of the one Kun had been working in two months back: a bunny with a tiny white bob-tail, beautiful coat of glossy brown fur and wide, round eyes.

Mischievous eyes, Mark decided, scattering the dust. Above her head she appeared in her dream running in an endless field of flowers, alongside five bunnies pacing her exactly. Peals of delighted laughter rang from behind as Mark closed the door behind him.

He gave a little dance, a small hop in his step as he took to the skies again. It had been a while since he’d given Donghyuck a dream with animals in it, perhaps he’d like that too?

The moment Mark’s toes touched down on the tarmac he took off jogging towards the house that had become so familiar over the past few months. Quickly, he flicked the door open and stepped inside.

Up the stairs, Mark gripped the doorknob to Donghyuck’s room and paused. In the darkened corridor he squinted at the wall. 

“Donghyuck-ah, you opened the door too hard and the wall outside has a hole.” Mark complained as he stepped inside. “Aigoo what - “

Mark furrowed his brow. He stretched his hand out and sure enough, he felt it again.

He took a cautious step in. All of a sudden his outstretched arm felt like it was about to be yanked off and he lurched forward, stumbling to his knees in the middle of the room. Breathing heavily Mark clutched his arm to his body and closed his eyes against the pull, tugging at every inch of him.

What the heck?

Mark looked up at Donghyuck’s sleeping figure. His heart started to pound, because despite his nose, even though he hadn’t smelt the cheap cleaning agent that had permeated and displaced the stale beer in the halls he could definitely smell what was coming off in waves from Donghyuck.

Kneeling there, his mind was drawn to the seaside, a house overlooking the waves. They had many cranes there to help with the shipments that came to the docks and in the air bathed by the salt of the waters the railings all took on a beaten, brown hue. When his hands left the railings that was the smell he smelt.

He walked those paths sometimes, staring at the horizon as the seagulls circled overhead.

Mark all but fell to Donghyuck’s side. He peeled the corners of the blanket from the huddled figure and his breath caught in his throat. Scooping the boy from the cocooned mess his fingertips scrabbled for purchase, glowed gold on Donghyuck’s cheeks, illuminating the mottled blue and black under his eyes, the red by his lips and -

His mind went blank.

\---

Donghyuck was in pain.

After his father had stormed out of the house (or he hoped he did, please, please let him be _gone_) Donghyuck had crawled from the hallway into his room and under the blankets, his only place of refuge all those months ago. 

He tasted metal whenever he swallowed. He lifted up a finger and gingerly touched his cheeks. The pain bloomed then, bone deep, and he hissed and curled up on himself, willing it all away.

He would sleep soon, he told himself. Sleep soon and live in that other world that was better than this one was. Maybe if he wanted it bad enough he’d pull the dream right out of the air and so he wanted, wanted until he had slipped into uneasily sleep.

Donghyuck almost laughed at the cruel irony when he had opened his eyes to see nothing but a wide expense of blue. Couldn’t Chenle or Jisung be there that night? How about the beach, the coffee shop, the frozen lake. He felt a stab in his chest. Then another one, then -

\- Then something was gripping his hand, pulling him to stand upright. He opened his eyes.

A man, a boy not much older than him, stared back. His blond hair fell in waves around his face, framing the largest eyes he’d maybe ever seen. The boy’s mouth was moving frantically, a hand gripping his face and turning it this way and that, but all Donghyuck could see were those pair of eyes.

“-hyuck? Where are you hurt? Show me where you’re hurt.”

Those eyes. They were so kind.

Donghyuck felt his lips tremble and he bit down hard. The boy lifted his arms, checking him for more of the colours he knew covered most of his face. He must look a sight, a freak even, yet this boy was touching him like he was the most precious thing in his eyes.

For a second, Donghyuck let himself lean into the warm touch, eyes fluttering shut.

“Are you hurt anywhere else? Let hyung see.”

Hyung? 

Donghyuck’s eyes snapped open. He shook his head. Wasn’t he pathetic?

Pathetic not in the way he’d cowered as the blows rained down and he had landed on his knees, choking and sputtering, tasting iron on his tongue. What was pathetic was that he had to dream up someone to run to after he had been hurt.

The boy’s brows furrowed when Donghyuck took a step back, and he seemed to instinctively move forward, fingers chasing his cheeks. “Hey come back, I’ve got to make sure you’re okay -”

Donghyuck stared at him uncomprehendingly. He wasn’t even real. Why did he feel so real?

“You,” he rasped out. The boy froze at his venomous tone, eyes widening. Those eyes. The big, innocent, doe-eyed ones. Something clicked in Donghyuck’s brain and he threw back his head and _laughed_.

The blond boy frowned and the serious look in his eyes almost made Donghyuck laugh again. “No, why are you laughing?”

Donghyuck smiled brilliantly, but his eyes were dead. “Why have you come again?”

“Again?” The boy’s doe-eyed stare turned into a deer caught in headlights. “What are you -”

“It’s you,” Donghyuck said simply. “At first I thought you were my subconscious or something but you’re not, you’re _you._ Or maybe you’re not even blond. Maybe you’re just the eyes. The musician at the cafe and even sometimes Chenle and Jisung have those eyes sometimes. The big ones that look at me...that look at me and make me feel all these weird feelings…”

At the boy’s slack jawed stare Donghyuck laughed again. It sounded something bitter, even to his ears. “You’ve been driving me crazy these few months, you know that?”

“Wh-What?” The boy looked completely and utterly lost. 

Anger bubbled in Donghyuck’s chest and his glare sent the other stumbling back a step. “What I mean,” he spat out, words coated in venom but voice breaking all the same. “Is stop. Just stop. Stop coming and appearing in my dreams and making me want something I can never have.”

He felt the sharp pin pricks start behind his eyes. They burned.

The boy recoiled. He shook his head, locks of blonde hair swaying with each movement, eyes searching Donghyuck’s. “You don’t want that, you don’t know what you’re asking for,” he pleaded. “You -” 

And then the boy’s words died as his expression shifted, as if listening to someone or something far away. That moment was gone as soon as it started and the boy gave Donghyuck a last desperate look. “I’ve got to go now. But you’ll be okay, you hear? You’ll be okay, I’ll never-”

What he’d never do or say was lost as the boy faded to nothingness together with the floor underneath Donghyuck’s feet, and he fell.

The next thing he knew, he was being shaken awake by firm hands, torchlights reflecting sharply off fluorescent yellow vests. Groaning, he pressed his hands against his ears to block out the loud voices, too many, too many, trying desperately to fall back into the space he had just been in but finding only cold, hard floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wahahahahaha let's get this plot going~ the next update will probably take longer that this updates (since the previous chapter was short and all)
> 
> also! age order is mostly kept the same but since the years between each member can span decades theres some differences, main ones being that yukhei is considered older than mark and yuta around jaehyun and jungwoo's age range.
> 
> as always, thank you so much for reading!


	4. Synchronisation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaaand this has become one of the most angsty things ive written oops
> 
> warning: some depictions of violence (early-middle) and potentially disturbing imagery (end)

It could have been a second or an eternity that he spent staring, unmoving, at Donghyuck’s sleeping form before a voice pierced his consciousness.

“-ark, Mark!”

What? 

Mark blinked, dazed. What was he doing here?

His gaze landed on the face tucked in the crook of his elbow, the blue and black and he remembered. Patrol, Donghyuck. Mark closed his eyes with a shuddering breath. A wave roared in Mark’s ears because how dare he, how dare he actually lay a hand - 

“Mark! Don’t do this.”

The buzz in his ear felt like a tight smack to his face and he blinked hazily down at his hands. “Can you see this? Can you see -”

“Yes I can.” There was something urgent in Johnny’s voice trying desperately to pry its way past the fog in Mark’s mind. Was it because he was touching him? “I’ve triggered code purple over the house, the neighbours will be over soon and they’ll take it from there okay?”

Mark could barely hear over the whirring sounds in his head. So that was what had felt off, he hadn’t felt the father’s presence in the house because he wasn’t there. How long had it been since Donghyuck had been left alone, again, before Mark had found him? He hadn’t even locked the door, and the hole outside...the hole in the wall outside…

It had been dark. It had been dark in the hall and Mark breathed in and the smell was so sweet it was sickening.

How he wanted to conjure up the ghastliest beasts from the shadows to haunt that man’s nights. Great, hulking masses of shadows with the classic glowing red eyes, howls that ripped their way into the sinews and bones of the man to make him shatter to pieces from the inside out and -

In his arms, Donghyuck let out a small whine.

Oh gosh, oh gosh. Mark looked down at the boy, face snuggled against his warmth, fingers gripping tightly to his jacket, black as night. Mark’s own fingers, filthy traitors, glowed yellow as they curled protectively around the younger boy’s arm and he slipped into calmer sleep. His other hand came up and his thumb traced the lines down his cheeks, still damp and sticky.

Then: code purple?

Vaguely, he registered the swirl of purple dust falling from the device in the ceiling. There was a knocking from the door. Code purple was for emergencies. People around would answer its call.

Mark traced a finger down Donghyuck’s cheek, gentle so as not to hurt him further. Stopping by his lips he paused. There was a strange pressure on his chest because even in sleep Donghyuck’s mouth was twisted into a frown.

He looked up and there was nothing hovering above his head. Mark brought his fingers to his face and under the dim lighting, could see the small indents on his fingertips that told him he had given sand recently. He shook his head, did he already...?

_You’ve been driving me crazy these few months, you know that?_

No. No. That couldn’t have happened, Donghyuck would never say that to him. But there was a layer of nothingness between Donghyuck’s body and his arm, pushing him away. So it had, hadn’t it?

“Mark, you have two minutes before the cops come. Get out of there.”

The discontent roars of the beasts he had summoned faded as they shrunk and disappeared from existence, changing into a throbbing that pounded in his head, a rock concert only for him. Just now, had he just - he just said - 

Mark’s hand fell limply to his sides. Donghyuck’s body slumped to the side and onto the mattress. The knocking grew more insistent, a murmuring of confused voices in the distance.

“Mark, I swear to - get out now!”

\---

The houses along the street were all lit up, the air of the dream dissipated amidst the activity of life. Wedged between stone walls the police cars were silent as men and women filed out from the house hours later. Slowly, the crowd left and the place was silent once again.

To the North, the sun began to rise.

It was only then that Mark uncurled himself from where he was balanced on the telephone pole, watching the scene, and allowed himself to think of anything else.

He had failed. The realisation was bitter to his mouth, hands shaking lightly as he started ascending home. Would he even have a home to return to and if he didn’t, where’d he go otherwise?

Mark pictured an eternity spent bound above, watching people go by, bearing their pain alone. He didn’t want that. He really didn’t.

A buzz of static. “Mark, you there?”

The young operative paused for a moment before replying nasally, “I failed, didn’t I?”

There was a beat of silence before Johnny’s voice floated through, rough but firm. “No. Don’t think of that yet. You’ve had a hard night so I don’t want you thinking of anything right now okay? Just go home and get some sleep. I have a meeting now but I’ll call you once that’s done and let you know the update.”

“Alright,” Mark whispered. “I’m so sorry, hyung.”

“Get some sleep, Mark,” Johnny replied, softer this time. “I mean it. Just...don’t think of anything for now.”

Silence as the line disconnected.

No one was waiting for him as he landed onto the wooden platform. Mark stood there on the platform at the plaza, staring up at the streetlights dimming by the second. There were ants under his skin and an unscratchable itch on his soles and Johnny had told him to sleep but how could he sleep?

He couldn’t bear to go home to the half-empty apartment. Kun would no doubt snuggle him in the warmest blanket they had and talk to him in a low, gentle voice, make him a glass of warm honey milk. Yukhei would sit there too, hug him until they both fell asleep, exhausted. If he cried, he knew Yukhei would cry too. He didn’t want Yukhei to cry.

Where else? Jungwoo’s would be closed for the day, so would the lab since Johnny had his meeting. The library was opened at all hours though, and Mark found his feet heading in that direction. What would he do? It was unlikely Taeil would be there at this hour to borrow out archives. 

By Mark’s side his bag jingled. 

He paused on the roadside, hand sweeping around in his bag until his fingers closed around a thick plastic rectangle: Ten’s pass.

The Dreamer’s Space. Donghyuck. 

Mark thought back to the documents he had borrowed. “The Dreamer and the Dreamer’s Space: How We Meet in Dreams Volume 2”.

...would there be a Volume 1?

His heartbeat picked up. Donghyuck had seen him. Mark had actually been stupid enough to appear before him, and Donghyuck had recognised him as something other, but something constant. How we meet in dreams...Mark’s steady walk turned into a run as he raced down the remaining roads to the library, a crazy, unfounded, spark of hope igniting. 

A singular row of lights lit up as Mark slid through the doors. He was at the base of the staircase in a flash, taking them two at a time. Panting lightly he arrived at the floor, where he scanning the card and pushing down on the handle.

Finding the same shelf proved fast, as did finding the file. It slid out easily this time with the obvious space left beside it and Mark carried the file to the other end of the bookshelf that was illuminated by the center strip of light. He quickly scanned through the contents page and flipped to the middle.

“Interpreting the dreamer’s space,” Mark breathed, finger underlining the words, Korean still a little unfamiliar to his eyes. “While it is the Sandman’s role to navigate dreamscape and its nuances, one should not neglect the perception of dreams of people, the primary benefactors. Perceiving it as an exercise of comfort, while one of the functions, may prove one-dimensional, particularly because the human is relegated to a passive role.”

He flipped to a few pages down. “The human dreamer’s experience can often be found in the literature and art of their era. Take for example the second half of the poem “A Dream within a Dream” by Edgar Allan Poe:

“I stand amid the roar  
Of a surf-tormented shore,  
And i hold within my hand  
Grains of the golden sand -  
How few! Yet how they creep  
Through my fingers to the deep,  
While i weep-while i weep!  
O God! Can I not grasp  
Them with a tighter clasp?  
O God! Can I not save  
Once from the pitiless wave?  
Is all that we see or seem  
But a dream within a dream?”

“Given the level and accuracy of detail, it can conceivably be theorised that Poe had gained awareness of Sandman, a hypothesis recently confirmed by Poe himself. For all attempts at separation certain 'handprints' have been clearly identified. It is then suggested that true separation is not possible given our existence in the same plane of thought at the same time. Another case in question of 1882...”

Mark frowned at the thick black marks that obscured the text. He flipped through the last few pages of the chapter. All had significant walls of text marked out in black. There were more snippets he could read at the end, but the disjointed words he could make out couldn’t be fit into a sentence no matter how hard he tried.

“Transference...founding...” Mark rubbed at the blank ink, hoping the friction would make it just translucent enough for him to pick up more words. It didn’t.

“Looking for something?”

Marks head whipped around. His heart dropped down past the floorboards at the lanky silhouette standing over him before said silhouette moved into the light. Mark breathed a sigh of relief when he saw whose face it belonged to.

“Yuta hyung,” Mark said. It was only then that he noticed his fingers were trembling, had they always been trembling? He let out a shaky breath. “You scared me.”

“Jittery today, aren’t we? What are you doing here at this hour?”

Mark huffed a breathy laugh as he stood up, dusting off his jeans. “I could ask the same of you.”

“You got me,” Yuta grinned. “Fell asleep this morning so I’m pulling an all-nighter to get that,” he nodded to a pile of books and files on a trolley, “sorted out.”

Mark made a face. “Yikes.”

“You didn’t answer me Mark-ah, what are you doing here?”

“I -” Mark’s brain short-circuited as he tried to come up with a legitimate reason. “I couldn’t sleep,” he finally said lamely.

Yuta frowned. “You’re such a bad liar. What’s wrong, Mark? Did something happen? Is it cause Jaehyun’s not around?”

“No, no, not that,” Mark grimaced. Everyone was asleep and he realised with a tinge of guilt that he didn’t want to go to Johnny’s even if he could. He felt the gap between them, something he hadn’t quite figured out. There was less of that with Jaehyun and Jungwoo, and Yuta...

“You can talk to me if you’d like,” Yuta offered, and it was all Mark needed for his walls to crumble down.

“Hyung,” Mark whispered softly, gaze trained on the floor. “Have humans...found out about Sandmen before?”

Silence. Mark ventured a look at Yuta, who stared back with an expressionless gaze. His look was indecipherable as they travelled down to the file Mark held in his hands.

The sharp hardening of his jaw was the only warning Mark had before a fist slammed into his face.

Mark cried out in pain as he landed heavily on the carpeted floor. He heard a sickening thud as his head followed his body, and everything went black for a moment. When he came to the lights swam in front of his eyes and he immediately squeezed them shut again, the lights too bright, piercing pain shooting through his brain. 

Then something landed heavily on his chest and Mark gasped, eyes flying open as he scrabbled desperately for purchase. Yuta grabbed onto his wrists and Mark was pinned to the ground by his weight. He blinked and blinked and slowly the lights started to return to the bulbs and the colours to their places when his line of sight was thrown into darkness again.

“What the hell did you do, Mark Lee,” Yuta’s voice was a whisper laced with thick poison rising in volume with each word. “What the hell did you do!”

“Nothing, I swear!” Mark choked out. The blow to his jaw told him that wasn’t the correct answer. The taste of iron flooded his mouth. “Hyung, stop! Let’s talk it out, stop it!”

“Nothing? You think screwing around with that boy’s head is nothing?” Yuta screamed. Mark’s hands came up just in time to bear the brunt of the next punch, and the next, and the next. “Who do you think you are, playing - aargh!”

The weight vanished from Mark’s chest. He backed up against the bookshelf as he drew in deep ragged breaths, palms prickling with the heat of carpet burn. In front of him, Yuta lay trapped, pinned down by Taeil murmuring urgently into his ear. Yuta shook his head but his breathing slowed and his speech softened. “No, no...that’s what Hansol said too, you can’t let him…he doesn’t have the strength...”

“Shh,” Taeil stroked Yuta’s hair back soothingly, running a thumb down his cheek. With a shock, Mark realised Yuta was crying.

“Hyung…” Mark made a move to cross over, but Taeil quickly turned to look at him. 

“Mark.” His voice was soft eyes were unreadable as they were heavy, stopping his movement even from that distance. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Mark stared at him desperately. “I need answers, please -”

Taeil fixed him with a measured gaze. Then he looked to the file that had fallen open where Mark had dropped it after Yuta tackled him. Mark couldn’t hold back a gasp as Taeil’s eyes glowed white for a second before returning to normal. The pages fluttered lightly.

“There is enough there for you to find your next step.” Taeil said simply.

In his arms, Yuta let out a whimper. “No, please.”

“I’m sorry Yuta, you know he has to.” Taeil whispered, continuing to stroke his hair. “Mark, you won’t find what you need here so please leave. Now.”

“I -” Mark swallowed down his protest. Not for the first time he wondered if in all his years here Taeil had acquired different types of magic, because he found himself silently bowing to them both before running as fast as he could out the door and down the spiral staircase.

Mark stumbled out of the glass doors and into the circle of light under a nearby streetlamp. He held a shaking finger to his cheek and hissed. Darting out his tongue to lick at his lips, they came away tasting of iron.

He hurriedly flipped the pages of the file. It all still looked the same, typewritten on browning paper, blocks of black obscuring text.

Think. Mark squeezed his eyes shut. The pillar he had sat under, Taeil appearing at that crucial moment. Vaguely, he remembered the black lens stuck to the ceiling, heat and motion sensors buried underneath the layers, the same kind he’d been tinkering with Ten in the lab a month ago.

From his response and wording too, Taeil must’ve surely known knew exactly what Mark had been reading. Mark flipped to the beginning of the chapter and started again. 

“The case in question of 1882…” Mark stopped short at the start of the black out, then decided what the hell, and slowly scanned the page line by line. 

Three pages down and the desperation was starting to mount again because his one lead had proven useless, when a light dusting caught his eye. They landed on a paragraph further down on the next page. Mark squinted.

Before his eyes, a line of black ink faded into letters.

“02 Eres St., J-Flo Design Centre,” Mark recited. Some sort of address, then. He flipped through the rest of the pages, lingering on each sentence just in case but they remained as they were.

J-Flo Design Centre. It sounded familiar the way it did when you heard a song years after you first caught it playing. Mark typed the address into his phone. 

He stared at the empty bus stop on the opposite street. The buses didn’t run at this hour and the city was a flying-restricted area. He glanced down at his phone again. It wasn’t too far. Tucking the file into his bag, Mark started down the street.

\---

The building was situated inland unlike majority of the Sandmen’s, where access to the edge of the city was crucial in order to descend to Earth. It’s architecture was more modern than many of their buildings, and Mark supposed it was because this section was founded later than theirs had been.

In size the building was modest: nowhere near as big as the Sandman library but similar to city hall. The walls were entirely glass on the side that faced Mark. It was distinctly rectangular and the first floor opened up into a concourse and a set of sliding doors. 

Despite the time of day most of the lower half of the building was lit up. Mark could see people milling around on all floors.

By the entrance, Mark double checked the location of his phone. Satisfied, he walked by a few potted plants in the driveway and, ignoring the butterflies in his stomach, pushed his way into the lobby.

The door jingled pleasantly to signal his arrival. At the front desk, a young man looked up and smiled brightly at Mark. “Hello, welcome to J-Flo Design Centre. Can I help you?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, I’m new around here,” Mark confessed with a nervous smile. He scratched his neck. “Could you tell me more about this place please?”

“Sure! Are you perhaps interested in signing on as an artist or is this a business trip?”

“Sorry? Uhm…” Mark hesitated. Artist? His gaze narrowed in on the guitar pick necklace the man wore. They may not be welcoming to Sandman, Mark thought as he formulated his reply. “The arts seems interesting. I used to...compose. A long time ago.”

“I see,” the man nodded, scribbling something down. “If you’re curious about what we can offer to an artist like you I can bring you on a tour of the place, see the facilities. You can call me Seungchan, by the way.”

Mark nodded. “Yes please. I’m Mark.” He winced. Oops.

If Seungchan noticed anything he didn’t let it on. “Right. Now, if you’d follow me…”

The inside was bigger than it had first looked from the outside. Seungchan led Mark through corridor after corridor of rooms. Many were dance studios - Mark peeked through the small glass windows to see them occupied, the faint beat of music permeating through the walls. 

“Our centre works to keep up with the ever-changing culture and arts scene of Korea.” Seungchan explained as Mark stared, wide-eyed. “We work with operatives all over the world to conduct research and to guide its development as well. For that we have many facilities ranging from dance studios to recording booths, as you can tell we’re mostly focused on performing arts.”

There were recording booths on the lower floors, empty and inviting. Mark’s eye landed on a guitar case leaning by the door. His footsteps must have slowed down because Seungchan noticed his distracted gaze. “Hey, why don’t you give it a go?”

Mark blinked and pointed at himself. “Me?”

“Yeah, didn’t you say you were considering a side-career in artistry? Hey, don’t look so shocked. Honestly a lot of people here are part-timers. You kind of look like the scout-y type?”

Mark hummed non-committedly. His fingertips brushed the canvas of the guitar case. Gosh, it’s been so long. 

“Maybe a little,” Mark murmured. He unzipped the guitar with practised ease and spent a minute tuning it by ear. Then he started to play, fingers hesitant at first, but quickly finding their spots as if the years between then and now had never passed.

When his hands stilled, the sound of clapping filled the room. Seungchan was grinning broadly. “Hey now, you’ve got talent! Dude, you should definitely consider signing on. Let’s see what else you’ve got, c’mon!”

Mark cleared his throat as he picked absentmindedly at the strings, letting muscle memory take over. He’d been so busy with training that he hadn’t thought of asking if he could get a guitar of his own, maybe compose songs for dreams.

He perked up. Now that was an idea. Donghyuck had liked music.

Donghyuck.

His fingers tripped on the chord and Mark let out an awkward laugh. “Ah, sorry. I’m a little out of practice.” He quickly got up and returned the guitar to its original position. 

“Still sounded fantastic to me.” Seungchan shrugged. “Just give us a call anytime and we can arrange an audition with the higher ups. Trust me, talent like that is wasted if you don’t use it. I’ll take you back to the lobby. Take your time to consider, but promise me you will?”

Mark nodded, and the two headed up. When they arrived back at the lobby, Seungchan dived behind the front desk and brought up a name card, sliding it over to Mark. “Here’s our company’s name card, I’ll leave a note with management so they’ll know your name if you call.”

Mark stared at the card he held in his hands, still dazed from the music but the sight of the lobby brought the weight of his current situation back down. “Thank you so much for taking me around,” he started. “But I have a question, if you would?”

“Sure, shoot.”

“Do...do you know a Hansol? Here?”

Seungchan stiffened. “Why -”

“Ah, Seungchan-ah, I knew I’d find you here!”

Both of them whipped their heads around to locate the source of the new voice. It was soft and lilting, and belonged to a man with a head of curly blond hair, and possibly the largest eyes Mark had ever seen. His hair hung in strands framing his round face, the sheen of sweat visible on his skin. In his baggy joggers and sweatshirt, he’d clearly been exercising for a while. 

Dancer, Mark’s mind absently supplied.

“Here are the keys to the practice studio. I remembered to switch off all the lights this round so Jinkwon won’t scold you again. Trust me on this, you’ll love the new choreo.” The man smiled happily as he approached the counter, key in hand. He hadn’t seemed to notice Mark.

Mark snuck a glance at Seungchan, who looked like he’d seen a ghost. “Hyung. Oh my gosh. Wait here, don’t do anything.” With that, he bolted off, shoving at the doors on the right.

“Seungchan-ah!” The man’s eyes were widened in shock at the other’s sudden departure, and Mark felt as confused as he looked. Pouting, the man turned back to the counter and started when he saw Mark. Then he flashed a smile, sudden and sweet. “Oh hello, didn’t see you there.”

“It’s no worries,” Mark grimaced. He wasn’t wrong about Seungchan acting weird all of a sudden, then, if this man’s reaction was anything to go by. If Seungchan wasn’t back soon maybe he’d just ask him. “I was just asking Seungchan some questions about this place, but now he’s run off. Do you think he’ll be back?”

The man shrugged. He dropped his sports bag down beside the counter and leaned against it. “Probably, he’s on duty, or I’ll report him to Jinkwon who’ll kick his ass. If you have any questions you can try asking me. I’m Hansol, by the way. Principal choreographer.” 

It took a while for the words to sink in. “Are there - are there more than one Hansols here?”

“Not that I know of,” the man laughed gently, eyes twinkling. He held out a hand. “It’s not the most common name. Nice to meet you…?”

“Mark.” He hurriedly supplied, taking the proffered hand. “It’s nice to meet you too -”

His eyes widened. Without thinking, Mark grabbed Hansol’s hand in his and brought it to his eyes. No, it couldn’t be, but there was no doubt about it at all. Because there on Hansol’s fingertips and palms were calluses made from tiny pin prick scars. Mark’s own hands were rough in the same places, but on other operatives, older ones like Jaehyun and Taeyong and Doyoung, one could sometimes see the grooves from which the sand fell from.

“Hey, what are you -”

Hansol’s protests were drowned out by the sound of sliding doors. Seungchan ran out from them, led by another man with mousy brown hair. Seungchan’s mouth was moving quickly, gaze fixed on the man in front of him. Their conversation was faint, growing louder as they neared. “- His name wasn’t on the list, I swear.”

“You don’t just see the list, you check the hands,” the other man hissed, and Seungchan fell silent. “And I told you, if anyone comes looking for Hansol you come to me straight away.” Noticing Mark and Hansol, he pursed his lips into a straight line and came to a stop near them. Mark hurriedly let go of Hansol’s hands.

“Jinkwon,” Hansol called out to the other man. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

The brown-haired man - Jinkwon - rearranged his facial features into a pleasant smile in a blink of an eye. “I heard from Seungchan that we have a songwriter hopeful.”

“Oh yeah?” Hansol eyed Mark with renewed interest. “Well I’ve got to be going, but if you do decide to sign on come find me! I’d love to see what music you have.”

With that, he turned to the counter Seungchan had returned to, sliding his keys over the counter and chatting good-naturedly about his new piece. Seungchan nodded periodically as he passed Hansol a clipboard to sign, but his actions were slightly stilted.

“Mark.” Jinkwon beckoned him to the door he had just come from. “A moment, if you will.” 

Mark didn’t have much of a choice and followed him to a table just past the doorway where the two sat on opposite sofas. He stared up at Jinkwon who ran his hand through his hair a few times before speaking, getting straight to the point. “Mark, right? You’re a Sandman.”

He nodded. “I am.”

“If your name wasn’t on the list you must be new.” 

“Yes.” 

Jinkwon gave him a wary look. “Well, what are you doing here?”

Mark opened his mouth then shut it again, unsure of how much he should give out. If his reaction earlier was anything to go by, he wasn’t happy. But he didn’t have time to figure out everything, it was already way past three in the morning. He still needed an hour to get back to the city before Johnny found out he had skipped lab and was missing. “I need to know what happened with Hansol,” he eventually blurted out. “Please.” 

“I figured.” Jinkwon fixed him with a stare. “But why? Why now? Why you?”

Mark met Jinkwon’s stare and furrowed his brows. He hadn’t realised how young Jinkwon was. And behind his cool exterior Mark saw vulnerability and fear. It was the same look Mark saw when he had thought of Donghyuck and his fingers had stiffened, almost dropping the guitar. He was trying to protect someone. He would understand, then, how Mark felt. 

“Something...happened during my patrol today. Taeil, our librarian, gave me this clue and said it would lead me to the answers I needed.” Unzipping his bag, Mark produced the file from inside and flipped to the page, pointing to the address for Jinkwon. 

Jinkwon buried his fingers into his hair in a particularly violent stroke and breathed in deeply. “You saw the marks on his hands, you know what he is.” he finally said, more statement than question.

Mark nodded in confirmation. Jinkwon continued to stare at the floor. Then he shook his head. “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you what happened.”

Mark blinked. That was not the reply he was expecting. If nothing else this just served as confirmation that there was something to be uncovered, and he needed to know. “Please, Jinkwon, a child is at stake. I need to know how to help him and makes things right.”

“Make things right?” Jinkwon looked up and their eyes met again, and Mark couldn’t help but stare at the depths of sadness they held. “Can’t you all just leave him alone? He doesn’t remember anything and he’s found a new life here, just like Taeyong hoped he would. Stop coming, please. It’s better for everyone.”

Something prickled under Mark’s skin. “He doesn’t remember?” he echoed.

“Do you know how hard it is to answer him when he asks who Yuta is?” Jinkwon said bitterly. “That’s right. I don’t care what that one guy of yours said about knowing all the stories, but I bet you he didn’t see this one coming, did he?”

“Taeyong?” 

Jinkwon shook his head. “No, not him, some other guy. Can’t remember his name but my point is, we’re all trying our best to keep him safe and you’re supposed to do that to. So stop. Coming.”

Stop coming. The words were a smack to Mark’s face for the second time that day. Vaguely he registered Jinkwon’s “I’ll see you out” and he distantly remembered standing up and being escorted out the glass doors, down the driveway, and to the highway that would lead him back to his city.

The walk back was a blur, broken only by Mark’s occasional shiver. Despite the daytime the roads he walked were still unblocked by buildings, so the evening breeze blew at full force. When he approached the city limits the sun had just set under the horizon, sky a brilliant orange with dark red streaks. He stared blankly at the sky. Now what?

Think, Mark, think. Jinkwon had mentioned two other Sandman, Taeyong and someone else. Taeyong was in America with Jaehyun now, though, so Mark couldn’t rely on an explanation from him. 

That left the other Sandman. 1882 meant it couldn’t have been Jaehyun, Yuta, or Jungwoo. 

“The one who knew all the stories,” Mark whispered under his breath, tasting the words in his mouth. Then he stood up straight with new resolve with how easy that was. All the stories were stored in the library under Taeil’s precious filing system, up the staircase that didn’t ever seem to end. He thought back to Taeil holding a year’s worth of case files in his hands and his vision tunnelled, feet taking him swiftly to the library.

Maybe Taeil had meant there was nothing for him to find before knowing about Hansol, Mark rationalised as he turned the street corner sharply, top of the library building coming into view. But now that he had found out, perhaps he was ready for whatever Taeil had to say.

As he approached the doors he frowned. The lights inside were switched off. He gave the door and experimental tug. They were locked. Using his hands as telescopes Mark peered in. The library was completely empty.

Mark walked a few paces back, almost losing his balance at the sudden wave of lightheadedness. No way this was happening, right? The library was never closed, why was it closed now?

Wait, there was one other way. Whipping out his phone, Mark found Taeil’s contact and called him. As he waited for Taeil to pick up, he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, left hand jammed deep into his jacket pocket.

“This number you’ve dialled is not available, please try again soon.”

Against all logic Mark kept the phone there. At the third replay of the message, he finally took it away, cheek cold with evaporated sweat. He stared at the phone in his hand, still replaying the message, and let out an incredulous laugh. Hanging up, he craned his neck to stare up at the library, reaching past his vision.

Imagine knowing all of that, he thought dazedly. Must’ve been around since the Joseon era. Maybe Taeyong - but right, Mark smacked himself, he’d already ruled him out. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying desperately to filter through his memories for clues. 

In his hand, his phone started to vibrate and Mark’s heart leapt into his chest only to come crashing down when he caught sight of the caller ID. Accepting the call, Mark swapped hands to hold the phone to his other ear. “Ten-hyung?”

“Yah, Mark Lee! I know there’s no lab today, but could you do me a favour and drop by my apartment with the books and pass? Can’t have you running around with them for so long,” Ten sung jokingly, but at this point Mark wasn’t so sure it was just a joke.

“I’ll be there,” he promised shakily, and Ten hung up.

If Mark had been at the dorms the walk wouldn’t have been far, considering Ten lived in the apartment five floors above his. So when he finally knocked on Ten’s door, books in hand, he was greeted with his scowl.

“That took you so long,” Ten whined, sandwiched between the door and the doorframe. Behind him, the blinds covered the windows and the apartment was in darkness. “Sorry Mark-ah, I’d let you in but Jungwoo’s passed out on the couch, so.”

“It’s alright, hyung, really. Have you seen Johnny tonight?”

“Johnny?” Ten squinted up at Mark, thinking. Then he shook his head. “I think he had a meeting, why?”

“Ah.” Mark felt his heart sink. So he was still there. A sense of deja vu swept over him as he surreptitiously shot a glance down at his phone, wondering when it would ring. “That’s alright then, sorry for bothering you hyung.”

Ten looked at him for a while. “When he’s done with the meeting he’ll probably be at the labs, given the time. I can pass a message if you’d like.”

Mark shook his head. “It’s alright! He said he’d get in touch with me, I’ll keep waiting. I’ve got some stuff to do first so no worries”

“Sure. Thanks for dropping by, you should go take a rest. Meanwhile I’ll be here suffering through all these -” Ten flipped to the last page of the topmost file and made a face -”ninety-four pages of stuff, stupid Johnny and his stupid damn research. Why’s there so much.” 

Mark peeked over to see the file in question. “Oh? He wrote that one too?”

Ten shot him an exasperated look. “Which book _hasn’t_ been written by Johnny? I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?” Throwing the younger a wink, Ten shut the door behind him. Mark sighed at the closed door, and turned to start down the corridor.

_“72 days. How the hell did you know?”_

Mark’s eyes snapped open, snippets of conversations flooding back into his mind, hitting him so hard he thought he might black out.

_“The reality show? You said two months.”_

_“Sometimes Johnny knows too much for his own good.”_

_“I know the research paper, did you see who wrote it?”_

“He wrote it,” Mark whispered to himself, grabbing the last file from his bag. “‘The Dreamer and the Dreamer’s Space’, he wrote the second one which means -” he flipped to the overview of the first volume and sure enough, written in neat typewritten font against yellowed paper: _Johnny Seo_. 

He was too short-sighted: he was looking at the keeper of records or the leader of them all, but he should have considered the writer of those records. Not just the writer of those records, the one who verified each and every one of them simultaneously on his eighteen screens night by night.

The one who knew all the stories.

To predict with such accuracy the duration of a celebrity he’d seen on television for one episode, to confidently predict future careers and trajectories that may or may not take place years and years in the future. Somehow Mark knew that if Kendall indeed blossomed into a model one day he wouldn’t be surprised at all. Forget the fact that Johnny hadn’t called him, the sky was darkening once again and soon it’d be time to suit up - he needed to get to the labs.

\---

Mark was sitting on the couch when the door to the basement creaked open, a ray of light that disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Footsteps sounded on the metal staircases down, then on the concrete as they made their way to where he sat.

The couch dipped as the newcomer took a seat. “Ten texted me. Said you’d probably be here.”

“Mm.”

“Taeil texted me, too.”

Mark hummed distractedly.

“So did Jinkwon.”

Now that the sun had long set, the room was in darkness except for the one naked bulb hanging over the couch. There was silence as the two of them continued to sit there, staring into the distance at the flickering screens of Johnny’s barely-illuminated workspace. Thanks to whatever Ten was brewing up, the place smelled like slightly burnt caramel. 

Two months ago, Mark had brought Donghyuck to the fair he used to go to, back in Canada. Every year when spring rolled around, the ground finally shrugging off its white blankets, the city would pull up red and white tents and they would celebrate.

In the dream, someone who had looked like Johnny had given Donghyuck a candied apple, since Mark couldn’t do it himself. Mark told all this to the man next to him in a low whisper.

“It was me, wasn’t it?” His voice came out a croak. The eyes had been wrong, all wrong. “It really was me.”

“That was the way it happened for Hansol.” Johnny responded softly. “For him it was his smile. You saw it, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Mark recalled. “It was very pretty a smile.”

Johnny gave a sad laugh. “That’s what Yuta had thought as well.” 

A pause. Then, “Hyung, how old are you, exactly?”

Johnny turned to look at Mark until Mark returned his stare. Big mistake. 

The moment Mark’s gaze met Johnny’s he found himself rooted to the sofa, held down by something impossibly heavy, impossibly ancient.

In those brown irises Mark saw images flit past: trenches filled with men speaking different languages under a soot-filled sky, a man with bright yellow hair standing upon a ship’s stern as green lands appeared over the horizon. He saw the landscape of Seoul, all skyscrapers and neon signs, move in backward motion until grass sprouted from where tarmac used to be and old trees took root again, pristine, untouched. A bearded man in an elaborate hanbok speaking into the distance before another man, hair long and unruly and dressed in dirty white prison garments, hands tied with ropes behind his back, screamed and howled and threw his head back for his cries to pierce the heavens as he was dragged away -

\- Mark let out a shaky breath as he wrenched his gaze from Johnny’s, feeling like he’d turned into liquid and been poured down a deep hole, then someone had come and pulled him back out.

He must have seen kingdoms collapse, monarchies implode. And Mark thought and thought and decided that after a while, based on understanding of a person and with the collective experience of so many others that came before, similar though not the same, the trajectory of someone’s movement could maybe be predicted.

“That’s...that’s pretty freaking old.” Mark’s gaze was vulnerable, accusing when he next lifted them up. “This is why Jaehyun opposed Taeyong’s decision. But you and Taeyong, you both knew the risks.”

A nod. “And now there’s something you have to do. It’s probably going to be the hardest thing you’ve ever done, but -”

“I’d do anything for him.” There was no hesitation in that proclamation. “Anything.”

Johnny gave him a measured look. “Hansol said that too. It’s best not to make promises you may not be able to keep”

“So? Did he do it?”

Slowly, Johnny turned his gaze away and from the depths of his bones Mark felt the bruise on his jawline, the imprinted memory of Yuta’s fists and the precipitation of his cries, start to gnaw.

\---

The address was unfamiliar. The building was unfamiliar.

Mark landed inside of the gates where a small family car was parked in the driveway. Skirting around it he ran up to the door, shoes of various sizes lined up neatly beside it. The door swung open to reveal white walls and wooden staircases leading to the second floor, a furry grey rug on dark grey tiles. 

Two, three people total. Not his business today - tonight he only had one name on his list.

Ascending the staircases lightly, Mark stopped to look at the photo frames hung on the walls. Many of them seemed to be of the same child: by the beach in a polka-dotted summer dress, carrying a bag on the first day of school. She wasn’t Donghyuck.

There was a lady in some of them, too, familiar tanned skin and big eyes smiling as her portrait was taken. Mark wanted to hate her on principle because how could anyone leave their son as alone as he had been? There again he didn’t know the exact circumstances he swallowed it back down. He hurried up the rest of the steps.

Eight months later Mark knew Donghyuck’s pulse like the back of his hand. He quickly walked down the hallway and stopped outside the second door on his right.

Quietly, Mark slid into the room, pushing the door close behind him.

The walls were yellow, room empty except for a desk, a bed, and a wardrobe. On the floor lay a bag that exploded with clothes, mostly black and somewhat faded. The white of his school uniform lay crumpled amidst the pile, like someone had simply stuffed everything in without caring what they were. They probably had.

He breathed in the scent of detergent. The grey curtains of the small window by the desk were half-drawn, casting the room in long shadows. Mark could barely see the stars where he stood squinting.

Awkwardly, Mark sat down beside the bed. With the bedframe, Donghyuck’s prone figure was at eye-level. He scanned the gentle slope of Donghyuck’s nose, his parted lips as he lay sleeping. Then Donghyuck groaned and turned in his sleep, murmuring softly. Mark looked away then, cheeks burning. 

The space above Donghyuck’s head was empty, dreamless.

Mark looked at his upturned palms. What was he to do? ‘You’ll know when the time comes’ was such awful advice, he thought with a wry smile. Damn Johnny and his cryptic advice.

“Hyuck-ah,” he whispered softly. “I’m sorry, I’m here again.”

‘Just do what you usually do’ had been the other one. Johnny said he’d mute his end of the microphone, give Mark some privacy. So Mark talked. 

“To be honest, I don’t really know what to do now I’m here.” 

Not for the first time, he imagined Donghyuck sitting cross-legged on the bed, mirroring him, nodding along and replying with the ease of life-long friends. Maybe he’d roll his eyes at Mark and retort something along the lines of: You have a job to do, dummy.

“I do. I don’t want to do it, though.”

Why’s that?

“You’ll have to forget me if I do. Or I’ll have to forget you. You never were supposed to know about me.” Mark picked at his fingers absentmindedly, a nervous tick since young. There was that sinking feeling again. The night might be young but it passed fast, and by the end of it Mark knew things wouldn’t be the same again. He wanted to sit there forever, never let the sun rise, talking to this boy he barely knew yet came to mean so much.

If it has to be done it has to be. Talk to me, then, maybe it’ll make things easier.

“About what?” Mark replied to the voice in his head with fake enthusiasm. He knew. Maybe the Donghyuck in his head would give him the out he needed.

How bout a story? You’re thinking of one right now.

Of course not. Mark scowled at the betrayal of his own mind. “Okay, you got me. There was once a Japanese boy living in the university dormitories downtown. Even in his sleep he had the brightest smile, and in his dreams his eyes had been big, bright.”

Sounds a little like you, hyung.

Was that really what he wanted Donghyuck to say? Probably, if he were being honest. He thought he’d like it if Donghyuck didn’t hate his eyes. “Yeah. And he was smart, like you were. A little too smart. So the other guy had to do something too.”

Yeah? 

“He didn’t, though. Couldn’t do it or something. Then there was some blow back and he never came back, and the boy had to live knowing his dreams were too real to be dreams, not real enough to be real.”

That’s a sad story.

Mark thought back to Yuta at the library. He thought of his smile from the counter, brittle in a way he’d never noticed. He thought of him clutching at Taeil’s arms as he sobbed quietly, a story incomplete. “It is.”

Talk to me about something else, then.

“Hmm?”

What dreams did you have?

“Me?” It had been a while. “You probably don’t remember this, but I was born in Canada. Grew up there.”

Vancouver. Toronto. Niagara falls.

Mark smiled at the memory. He remembered seeing the falls for the first time. It had been summer, the boat packed with people in flimsy blue raincoats, but there had been a rainbow stretching further up into the clouds than he could see. “Yeah, those. Then one day I decided to come to Korea for an exchange programme - see how the music scene was, you know? Played in a buncha cafes and stuff.”

And?

He shrugged. “Didn’t make it. It’s alright, a lot of people don’t. I’m one of the luckier ones already that I could you know, give it a try.”

Should’ve tried again, huh?

Mark smiled wryly. “Couldn’t even if I wanted to. I never made it back to Canada.”

Oh.

“But it’s okay, I’m alright with where I am now.” Mark supplemented quickly. “I...got to meet you, after all.”

A pause. So what?

Mark scratched his neck and smiled at the ground. “I don’t know. I see a lot of people on the job. A lot of them are kids though - you’re the only one my age. And you’ve never had a real dream before, I wanted to give that to you. Maybe it’s the way I’m wired now or something. Y’know. Work of the sand and whatnot. It seems so pathetic, I know, but - you feel like my friend, you know? I like talking to you. I want to make you smile. Live a good life.”

Laughter. This, this is why I told you not to come back.

“But -” Laughter? Mark stilled. That wasn’t the right answer. Tentatively, he stood up and reached out his senses. He inhaled sharply. 

“You’re awake,” he breathed, heartbeat mounting in his chest.

“Took you long enough.”

There was a beat of silence as Mark stared in horror at Donghyuck, shifting softly on the bed. No, he’d definitely been asleep when Mark had entered. How long had he been awake? When had he actually joined the conversation? Don’t turn over, don’t turn over, he prayed silently. He didn’t know if he could take it if Donghyuck turned and his face was filled with bitter anger.

“I know you’re there.” His voice was a whisper, but it echoed loudly through the empty room. “Or maybe I’m actually crazy.”

Mark bit his tongue. Held his breath.

Donghyuck laughed again, softly, into the sheets. “Really? You’re not going to say anything? You’re just going to leave me alone like that Japanese boy, aren’t you?”

That was enough to open Mark’s mouth. “No, I wouldn’t do that to you-”

“Then do it.”

“What?”

“Do what you need to do. I know you have something to do with the dreams and the police finding me. All those weeks just thinking and thinking the whole afternoon, really, I was going to explode. Chenle thinks I’m crazy but Jisung said he’s read something about it online before, and maybe, just maybe I’m not as crazy as I thought I was. “

Mark felt his blood run cold. “No, please. Don’t say it.”

“Thank you for the dreams, they were beautiful. But I can’t have them, I’m sorry, not when you’re there all the time. Don’t give me something I can’t have.”

This was all his fault, if he hadn’t made that stupid mistake yesterday, if he hadn’t lost his mind. “I’m sorry.”

“Please, hyung, just let me go.”

Let him go. Those three words, just three, sent bolts down Mark’s spine. But he thought of Yuta, how he had lived after Hansol...after Hansol…

And now Mark knew how Hansol must’ve felt. He swallowed, throat sandpaper dry and sharp as bones, too hot and too cold at the same time. His voice came out the barest hint of a whisper. “...Truly? Is this what you truly want?”

Mark could just about able to make out Donghyuck’s head nod as he lay curled tightly in the blankets. He shook his head helplessly.

What if Donghyuck didn’t forget him?

Then, a voice in his head whispered, he’d end up like Yuta. Yuta, who had planned to return to Japan after his studies but never did. He had spent years wandering the streets of Korea looking for a boy with blond hair and too bright eyes, who smiled sudden and sweet.

And Mark - he’d end up like Hansol. Scarred hands to remind him of a former life but no memory of it. No more prickling of sand running through his veins, no more hearing the laughter of dreamers who took the images he gave them and ran with them, ran until their legs gave out and they lay panting on the grass, looking up at the midnight sun.

Donghyuck deserved a good life. A long life. He’d just left the rest behind, too.

“I’m sorry,” was all Mark seemed to be able to say, his chest filled with cotton because all he wanted to do was hold Donghyuck and never have to let go. He felt the pressure building behind his eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Then the first tear fell. Then the next. Mark brought a hand up instinctively to wipe the wetness away.

Stupid tears, stupid, stupid, Mark screamed as he blinked rapidly, but his vision continued to blur. He stared through them desperately at Donghyuck, bringing another wave of sobs up.

Quickly, quickly!

Mark looked blearily at his upturned palms and willed. He willed for a dream to take his dream away, take all the other dreams away. He willed like he’d never willed before.

And, slowly, there was the familiar sharp pain beneath his skin. One grain popped out of his fingertips, then two. Mark glared at his palm. Three miserable specks of gold. That wouldn’t do anything.

_Grains of the golden sand - how few!_ Maybe the poet had been writing not from the dreamer’s perspective, but the dream-giver’s.

He continued to stare as one by one they popped out from his skin. No, no. He couldn’t be losing the sand, he’d already lost Donghyuck, he couldn’t lose that too.

Donghyuck. He needed to stay away, get back, but his mind held on like a vice grip. He couldn’t do it, he couldn’t -

The soft shuffling of fabric. Mark looked down at sleep-drowsed brown eyes. Despite it all, Donghyuck was smiling. And if Donghyuck was smiling, Mark would try to do so, too.

His lips wobbled, uncertain, as he tried to string them into a smile.

From the mattress, Donghyuck let out a gentle sigh, eyelids fluttering heavily. His mouth moved soundlessly. _Remember me._

Donghyuck’s eyelids fluttered shut as he slipped into deeper sleep.

Was...was that goodbye?

Panic clawed at Mark’s throat. “No, but I didn’t get to say goodbye yet! Donghyuck, Hyuck-ah…” Donghyuck didn’t stir. Just lay there, trusting.

“That wasn’t fair,” Mark whispered to the empty room. Then the other voice, the one in his head: was what you gave him fair? Are you being fair to him even now?

He wasn’t. All this time.

_Let him go, Mark-ah._ It sounded like Jaehyun.

Jaehyun, Mark thought. I’m sorry. I’ve failed you. You were right, I should’ve never taken this mission on. If Donghyuck can forget, I’ll take whatever punishment I deserve. Just let him be okay. 

_O God! Can I not save once from the pitiless wave?_

Let him forget me.

A sharp stab at his eye made Mark hiss in pain. There had been a prickling sensation building up over the past few minutes that Mark had paid no mind to, but now it felt like someone was driving toothpicks into the back of his eyeballs.

With the next wave of pain Mark jammed his eyelids shut, stumbling blindly back as he rubbed at his eyes, trying to get the sharpness out. Through slitted eyelids he looked at his palm. _Blue…?_

Something pushing at his eyes. One, twice. Then something burst like a dam broken in, and all Mark could feel was pain, pain, stabbing again and again at his eyes, and all he could see was blue and then nothing.

Up above the clouds in a basement filled with the smell of burnt caramel, Johnny averted his eyes away from the monitor. He dialled a number into his phone and waited.

“Hello?”

“He did it,” Johnny simply said, foregoing the greeting. “He did it. Go get your boy.”

\---

The early rays of dawn filtered through the windows when Donghyuck awoke. He stretched out on his bed and yawned, toes tingling. Outside, birds were chirping in the crisp morning air. Downstairs, the faint bass of a song started to play.

He smiled, chest feeling strangely light. Today seemed like a good day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 给我一瓶忘情水，换我一夜不流泪。[Give me a bottle of water to forget what I feel, exchange it for a night without tears.]
> 
> thank you for reading!


	5. Reality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: depictions of violence somewhere in the first part (between the second and third section breaks) i don't think it's very explicit, but still please be careful when reading if it could be a trigger!

It was cold. 

It had been cold for a long while, wind buffeting at his cheeks. Mark took in a wet breath. Something soft kept flying in his face. He wanted to open his eyes and find a fluffy bunny nuzzling his cheeks. He’d laugh and pat its head. But there were the bindings over his eyes, and he couldn’t muster up the energy to lift his hand, much less untie them.

“Hey! They’re here!”

A soft thumping sound and whatever Mark was resting on lurched forward. His cheek hit something hard.

“Here, let me -”

“No. Please. I can do it.”

Jaehyun? Mark perked up groggily. When had he come back? He sounded so near, and the wall on his chest was vibrating softly. Mark giggled. Maybe he was on a massage chair.

“- can’t let him go now. And please forgive me if you’ll understand why I won’t let you have him at the moment.”

“C’mon Jaehyun, you’re clearly exhausted and Johnny -”

“No, no. It’s okay. I understand. But let’s hurry before -”

“We’ve got Sicheng back early from patrol and he’s waiting at the -”

“ - don’t think...already irreversible -”

“ - anyone told Taeyong? He said...operation -”

Mark scrunched his eyebrows. It was so loud in here.

“ - shut up and just put this on. Mark-ah…can you hear…? Doyoung’s got - ”

He remembered murmuring about hearing everything perfectly. There were hands grabbing at his face, slotting something hard around his nose and mouth and strapping it tightly to his head. He breathed it. Then nothing.

\---

**FOUR YEARS EARLIER**

The occupants of the cafe clapped politely as Mark walked off the stage. He quickly zipped his guitar into its case and slung it over his shoulder.

“Good show today,” remarked Jaesook, the manager. Mark jumped at his sudden voice from behind - he had just come out from the back, green apron still on - and turned around with a sheepish laugh. He handed Mark a can of coke which he took gratefully. 

“Nice one to end off with,” agreed Mark. He looked wistfully around at the diners, now engrossed in their meals and conversations. They had spared attention for him, though, and for that he was grateful.

Jaesook didn’t miss the look in his eyes. He gestured at Mark, packed up for the day and ready to leave. “You sure you don’t want to continue? We could always do with more people at our open mic sessions. Brings in more customers.”

Mark smiled as he shook his head. “I’m sure. It’s about time I head back, anyway.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jaesook nodded in understanding. “So, college, huh? You applied already? What course?”

Mark sighed. “The conversation I’ll never be ready to have with my family. They want me to do finance, get a nice job in a bank.

Jaesook looked at him consideringly. “Well, what do you want to do?”

“Music. It’s been my dream ever since I was young, kind of why I came to Korea in the first place.” Mark shrugged, gesturing at the room.

The cafe was a modest establishment, just off the main road. In the sunny Thursday afternoon business was slow but anticipated the after-school influx of students.

“And? Surely there’s opportunities in music. You’re a talented rapper, Mark. And your voice isn’t too bad either.”

Mark shook his head with a soft laugh, embarrassed from the praise. “Nah, it’s...it’s been a dream, you know? But maybe it’s not my dream to live.”

Jaesook gave him a flat look. “You’re not doing a very good job convincing me that that’s actually what you think.”

“Yeah, me neither.” Mark scratched at his neck. “But time’s up is time’s up, right? Like, there’s family, and there’s responsibility and whatever. And I’m the only son, so.”

“I get that, I do. When I told my parents I wanted to set up my own cafe they almost went crazy.” Jaesook sighed. “But family’s family, man, you gotta stick together and they got your back. Tell you what - if you ever come back here and need a gig, just let me know. You’re always welcome here.”

Mark smiled gratefully at the elder. “Thank you so much. For taking care of me all this time, I’ll never forget your kindness.”

Jaesook winked. “Just pay it forward, kid. And don’t give up so easily. You’ll never know what may happen down the road, yeah? Maybe one day I’ll have to pay to see you in concert.”

Mark snorted. “Like real, hyung.”

“Hey, just saying. You’ll never know.”

When Mark stepped out of Cafe Sun and Moon, he looked up at the sky. White clouds floated lazily in the brilliance of the afternoon sun, and Mark couldn’t help but smile.

Hm. Maybe.

On days like this when he ended in the afternoon, Mark would often take his time on the way back to the hostel. It was late spring and the 4 o’clock sun shone brightly, shadows clearly allocated their spaces underneath building rooftops.

Spotting the familiar sign of a nearby convenience store, more through memory than actual reading of the words printed, Mark scampered to the other side of the empty road. 

Greeting the ahjumma at the counter, Mark walked to the back and picked out two bottles of yoghurt drink from the fridge. Jaesook had given him a bottle after his first open mic session, when he’d pulled the young man to a corner table to chat. Mark had been hooked ever since. Maybe the Korean mart back home would sell this, too. He never really noticed if they had.

“Two thousand won please,” Madam Jung received the money, cash register clacking noisily as it opened up its jaws. “Plastic bag?”

“No thanks,” Mark replied. He picked up a bottle and pushed the other one over the counter. “For you, ahjumma. Thank you for taking care of me.”

The first few days, he’d practically eaten every lunch at the convenience store, a different flavour of instant ramen every day. Sometimes when it wasn’t too busy, Madam Jung would stop by to chat, undeterred by Mark’s halting Korean.

“Going back so soon?” Madam Jung eyebrows furrowed in disappointment. “You’re a sweet boy, Mark-ah. Next time when you get married come back to Korea for your honeymoon okay? And come say hi to me.”

“Uhh...sure. It’ll take a while I think.” Mark blushed in embarrassment. Madam Jung cooed and pinched his cheeks.

“Now you work hard, okay?”

Mark looked back a final time from the doorway, waving. “I will!”

“Thank you for the drink!”

Mark carried on strolling slowly down the road. There was the pharmacy he’d visited after eating a bad clam, there was the pojangmacha that came every night. That was the street corner he busked at on Saturday mornings, that was the church he’d visited just last Sunday. Oh, that tree was where he’d taken his first selfie, on that bench he’d seen a couple making out and had practically been forcefully flung out from the park from his second-hand embarrassment alone.

Pojangmacha. Just the thought of it and he remembered the warm, spicy smell of kimchi jjigae and the chewiness of the tteokbokki. Well, what was stopping him from eating it one last time? His flight wasn’t until 11 the next morning.

If he reached the hostel soon and took a shower, he’d be able to make it back just in time for it to open. Then perhaps he’d stop by the Han river, take in the sights one more time. He could be back in his room by 9 to pack his things and still take an early night. 

A gurgling noise. Mark covered his stomach with his hand in embarrassment. Sounded like he was already hungry. 

Maybe he’d get a few mandus as well? He’d tried the vegetable ones before but the kimchi ones had looked pretty appetising, even if they were more expensive. Well, last time to try, so might as well -

He stopped in his tracks and blinked at the remainder of the narrow street. Slowly he turned, back against the yellow walls of houses. With small steps of the cobblestone walkway he inched to his left, wincing at the dull _clang_ of the wobbly drain cover. Carefully, he held his breath. Then he peaked around the corner of the house.

There. That man in the baggy track pants. His greasy hair hid his face so Mark couldn’t see so well, but he had both hands fisted in the shirt of a young boy.

Police, Mark’s mind screamed. With a shaking hand he reached into his back pocket for his phone, stumbling a little further down the road as it vibrated in his hand.

_Slap!_

Mark’s arm froze. A pair of scrawny legs stuck out from the ground and weren’t moving. His heart leapt into his chest. Legs shouldn’t be flopped like that.

“Stop faking boy, you’re beginning to annoy me.” The man’s voice floated around the corner. He kicked at something and the legs gave a jerk. There was a low moan.

“Isn’t that better? Now, I’ve got ways to make you squirm, but I’m not a bad guy, see. I just want you to give me all your money but you’re not doing it.”

A whisper, soft and wavering. The reply was so soft Mark strained his ears but to no avail.

The man let out a chuckle that made Mark’s skin crawl. “You think I’d believe that was all of it? Twenty thousand won? Maybe it’s somewhere you think I won’t check.”

A high-pitched whimper. That was a _child_. 

The police would be there in a few minutes, at least. Maybe more trying to find the exact alley. Places he won’t check? What did he...no. No, it couldn’t be.

“Stop squirming you little -” there was a small scream as the man raised his hand again, ready to bring it down.

“Stop!” Mark found himself standing at the entrance to the alley holding up his phone. _Stupid, stupid,_ his mind screamed at him but he shut it up, because he knew that if he thought too much about where he was he’d throw up. His arms was already shaking. “I’ve called the police.”

The man stepped back in shock and in the moment he did, the boy scrambled up and towards Mark. He collided heavily with Mark’s leg and clung on. Without breaking eye contact with the man, Mark bent down and whispered urgently to the boy. “Let hyung handle this, okay? Go find your parents.”

The boy let out a gasp of air and nodded. Gripping Mark’s leg tightly for a second longer he pushed himself off, feet pattering down the alley. Mark stood back up.

“Looks like we got ourselves a hero, don’t we?” The man’s face was twisted into a smile as he approached Mark menacingly. “Do you know what happens to heroes around here?”

On instinct, Mark took a step back and the man’s smile spread wider. What was he doing, what were you doing Mark Lee? His arms were pale and skinny, and the man peeled off his black jacket to reveal a too-tight shirt and biceps as thick as Mark’s thigh. 

He didn’t know how to fight. But he had to try, didn’t he, else he’d...he’d...

“No, no, you come back here.” In a flash, the man’s hand snaked around Mark’s wrist (when had he raised his wrist?) and squeezed. Mark yelped in pain. “I’m not letting you go so easy for taking my toy away.”

“He...wasn’t your...toy…” Mark gritted out. The pressure on his wrist increased. Mark could feel his bones rub against each other and hissed.

“And I had been in such a good mood today. You ruined it. Your fault, not mine.” With that hand, the man rotated Mark’s arm until the joints locked and his hand was his wrist and his wrist was his arm. Pain flared in his shoulder and slowly, he brought Mark to kneel on the ground.

“The police…” Mark whispered dazedly. The floor was beginning to swim.

“Won’t be here for a while.” There was something gleeful in his tone. With his free hand the man took something out from his pocket and flicked it open under Mark’s nose. The metal glinted in the sun. Mark’s blood ran cold.

“You don’t know what you’re doing, don’t try anything funny -” he gasped.

“Hey, you hear something?” With one swift backwards motion the man swung Mark’s arm to the back and he screamed and screamed because it was on fire and the man smiled, whispering close and low into Mark’s ear. “‘Cause I don’t.”

\---

Coarseness around his eyes. Dryness in his throat. Voices.

“ - relive that kind of moment so soon? Really, he -”

“ - need to remember why he’s here, this will be a big part in redefining -”

“ - leader for a reason, Taeyong, you know the members well -”

Blackness.

\---

Mark opened his eyes.

Even with the blackout curtains, the room was bathed in gentle orange light. He stared up at the ceiling for a while before swinging his legs over the bed. The ached something terrible, all of him did, and Mark wondered about it distantly. From across the room Mark’s alarm clock greeted him with bright red numbers: 14:24.

It was still early, then. Mark suppressed a yawn, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he took in the room with alertness. The gentle green he’d chosen for his wallpaper. There, the crack in the plaster from when he had been shifting his new cupboard into the room.

The cupboard filled with books and CDs from throughout the ages. Many had been from Jaehyun. Some had been from his collection in his own bedroom, intended for loan but that both of them forgot about for long enough that no one really knew whose was whose anymore - a few of Mark’s CDs had also ended up in Jaehyun’s shelves.

Beside it, a light wooden desk and wheeled chair with soft white cushioning. The curving desk lamp, bright red. A stack of papers Mark had photocopied from the library. His laptop and phone charging in the middle of the deskspace, little red lights blinking away. On the ledge above the deskspace: his communication earpiece charging in their pods.

Where his feet touched the ground lay a soft rug with pinks, yellows, blues in soft pastel, a gift from Kun when he had arrived. To his side a gigantic teddy bear, Yukhei’s ‘room-warming’ gift.

His cupboard doors were slightly ajar, storing his clothing and some other possessions. His sling bag, army green and bigger than one would think, was slung on the pegs behind his door, the way he always did after patrol.

All in all: home.

This time, the rest of the household would still be sleeping, Mark thought as he crossed the space leisurely. Maybe he’d get himself a cup of warm tea and settle in to sleep for the next hour or two. He was quite sure he didn’t have lab the next day, something in his stomach warm and lazy. 

He opened the door and slid out, ends of his track pants dragging on the cool marble floor. Slowly, he closed the door softly behind him.

“Mark?”

Mark swivelled his head around to the source of the voice. A head of brown hair peaked out over the couch, a pair of eyes staring at him curiously. “You’re finally awake, we’ve been waiting for you for a while.”

A while? Mark blinked. His knees went weak. Mark grabbed the back of the dining table chair to steady himself.

“How...how long was I out?”

Jaehyun motioned him over to the couch, and Mark complied. His gaze followed Mark, unreadable. “Seven days now.”

On the table in front of him, Jaehyun had a teapot set with two cups, one already filled. As Mark sunk down on the couch he watched silently as Jaehyun poured the tea with practiced ease, from a brilliantly blue teapot to a matching cup, sitting daintily on a matching saucer.

Jaehyun set down the teapot before broke the silence. “How are you feeling?”

Mark grimaced. “Like something in me has been steamrolled or something. A little numb.” Then, hesitantly, “is...is Donghyuck okay?”

“We’ll get there soon, there’s plenty of time to talk. It’s been a while since we’ve both sat together like this. Oh, in America I got you this.” Jaehyun took out a black hat from behind his back, setting it on Mark’s head. There was a small white logo on the front. “It’s from some famous art museum. Thought you might like it.”

“Thanks hyung,” Mark smiled and took the hat in his hands, admiring it for a moment before setting it down on the table. Then Mark cocked his head, eyes straying to the throw on the couch, the pretty flowers embroided on. There was something they had to talk about first, something inside insisted, before Jaehyun told him about America. Something that had to do with the sudden hollowness in his chest. “That night -”

“Mm.” Jaehyun took a sip of his tea. “What do you remember?”

“I...I went to the new address. I talked, as usual. Then I must’ve cried or something but it was different. ” He remembered all of it. Too much, too little. A pause as he tried to put it into words. “Everything was blue. I couldn’t see and...then I think you came to get me.”

He took a deep breath, tears threatening to form. “I failed, didn’t I?” That was it, those were the words that had sat heavy on his stomach. Now that they were out, he felt that emptiness again. “The entire time you were carrying me that was all I could think of. I’m sorry.”

“Mark.” At Jaehyun’s voice Mark snapped his mouth shut, a gentle wave that halted his reeling thoughts. “I want you to take a few deep breaths and then listen to what I tell you alright? Don’t freak out on me.”

He took a deep breath. “Okay. Okay. Don’t freak out. I can do that.”

Jaehyun’s eyes roamed over Mark’s face, studying his expression before he started to talk, slowly and cautiously. “Blue sand is the opposite of gold, an unnatural version when one wishes to take away. We’re built to give, so this version hurts us.”

Mark nodded once, twice. Then Jaehyun continued. “You didn’t fail, Mark-ah. I know it may not make sense to you right now but you didn’t.” 

“But the rules -”

“Are in place to protect both sides, but there are some cases where they don’t work. You haven’t failed, okay?” Jaehyun’s voice cracked as he reached out to touch Mark’s arm. “Trust me on this one, please.”

He mentor sounded distraught, broken. And it wasn’t really, couldn’t really be so quickly at least, but Mark still said it anyway. “Okay.”

“Donghyuck’s case has been moved out of U and to 127, that means it’s been declassified. You didn’t fail.”

“Okay,” Mark repeated, as if saying it more times would convince himself so. He dabbed at his eyes with his sleeves and breathed in. “I’m sorry, it’s just, sometimes I wonder if things would have been different if I hadn’t given him any dreams, you know? Like, what was the point.”

“I know you’re scared right now,” Jaehyun whispered. “So we’re going to do some remembering alright? Do you remember the first time you used the dream sand?”

“Of course I do,” Mark replied, casting his mind back over three years ago. Around him, the living room and the couch seemed to dissipate into mist. He stood with Jaehyun by his side in a darkened room, and blinked a few times to get used to the lighting.

His hands were clutching his backpack straps and oh right, he had used a blue backpack before his current sling bag. He felt younger, more nervous.

“Like we practiced,” Jaehyun said. Some time between the last sentence and this one, he’d changed his shirt and well, everything. “Take a deep breath.”

So Mark did. He pushed all other thoughts out of his mind, because somehow he was on patrol now and that meant work to do. He inhaled and imagined the air in his lungs travelling to his veins, rushing towards his palm, grains of sand riding the current and accumulating in his fingertips. 

A golden glow, soft at first, shimmered under his skin and Mark’s mouth fell open, entranced, his breath escaping his lips. The glow travelled down his arm to his palm. In the light, he could see Jaehyun’s wide grin, and the white wood of the baby’s cot when he slept soundly.

Come on, sand! Mark’s palms were glowing properly now.

“Picture the image, the image!” Jaehyun’s voice dropped to a whisper but Mark could still feel the excitement in them. 

The image of a demi-dream: being wrapped in a towel. Towel. Mark had a sand-coloured one in the apartment, Yukhei said they wove the clouds into it to make it so soft. That towel, Mark thought. That one.

Mark gasped and his eyes flew open wide as he stared at his palms. Pressure was building up beneath the surface of the skin and it felt like it would split at any moment. Then little slices in his fingertips as grain after grain welled up and out, gathering in his palm. When it was half full, he held it over the sleeping baby, no more than four months old, and poured.

He watched the sand cascade and fall on the child’s eyes, melting into them. Above his head, the space shimmered with the image of the child - the same child - snuggled in a warm, brown blanket. His cheeks were dusted pink and his small mouth curled into a smile.

Jaehyun laughed at Mark’s awe-struck expression. “Remember this moment,” he said, and his voice seemed strangely distant, out of time. “Remember why you do what you do.”

\---

More voices, loud and jarring.

“ - we’ve cleared everything on our end so he doesn’t have to worry about that. Graduation won’t be a problem.”

“I know.”

“Jaehyun, we’ve talked about this before.”

“I know. I trust you and Johnny, really, I do, but you weren’t the one who found him blinded and crying in that room. I was. To see him like that…”

A pause. “I’m sorry.”

“Sometimes...sometimes I can’t bring myself to visit that last place, but Mark really poured out all he had for him. It feels like the least I can do for him.”

“If you were in Mark’s place I’d feel like death too. Things will get better when he wakes up. They _will_.”

“I can’t stop thinking...did I...was there anything…”

“No. Stop that right now. There wasn’t anything that could have gone differently, all we can do is move forward. Mark needs you now.”

“He was still young. A little too young for...all this. I still believe it.”

“So young and he’s completed a U case. We’ve all made the mistake of getting a little too...attached to dreamers. He’s a good boy. He’ll be a great operative. You’ve done nothing wrong as his mentor. He thinks the world of you, you know.”

“Doesn’t mean anything if it all stops here. He takes these things very close to heart.”

“He hasn’t failed.”

“That part’s been emphasised for now, but will he be able to call this a success? You heard the recorded audio, you know how -”

Mark let out a groan. His head was hurting again and the voices echoed and shook his skull.

A sharp intake of breath. “Mark? Can you hear me? Can you -”

The voices faded into an indistinct murmur.

\---

“We’re all waiting for you, you know.”

A familiar line. He’d heard that recently. Mark blinked at the sight before him. The ocean was blue-grey, wave upon wave crashing into the concrete jetty. He was leaning on a metal railing, forearms resting on top with one foot placed on the bottom rung. Above him, seagulls circled under the cloudy sky. 

Next to him, Johnny stared into the horizon. His long brown hair was buffeted by the sea breeze. Mark tasted salt on his tongue.

Except - this wasn’t exactly Johnny. Nor was he exactly, well, himself.

“This is a dream,” Mark said.

Johnny nodded. “It is.”

“This isn’t real.”

“Who says the dream self and the other self are completely separate beings?” Johnny turned to look at Mark then, corners of his lips curled into an amused smile. 

Mark didn’t answer that. “You’ve got something to tell me. Like Jaehyun last time and before that...Taeyong?” 

Johnny hummed in assent. “Taeyong.”

“So what is it, then? Do I ask you questions, because I have a lot of them.”

“Yep. Shoot.”

“What you said about knowing all the stories. You can like, predict the future? Is that some super power?”

Johnny laughed. “Nope. Seeing the possibilities of how things will turn out isn’t always reliable. It’s kind of like this, see - ever since you found him, your next steps were intertwined with Donghyuck’s. If you hadn’t taken his case you wouldn’t have been satisfied, which would have impeded your growth as an operative, not to mention the whole getting used to sand thing.”

“Mm, so I took the case.”

“You did. And with the case came more responsibilities and special focus was placed on Donghyuck. First, because his was very different from your other cases and offered variety. Second, the nature of the case required more time spent. Third, he was around your age. And fourth,” Johnny side-eyed Mark, “your paths crossed long before this, too.”

Mark shook his head, smiling in disbelief. “You know, I did consider the possibility before that Donghyuck had been that kid. And now...now it all fits together so well it’s ridiculous.” 

“Hindsight makes sense because you see how your path is the only way things could have gone, all factors considered. Envisioning them, then, taking the next step and then building the next from there, can be broadly successful with enough experience. But only very vaguely.”

“And you could tell mine because?” Mark challenged.

“Because you’re a good person, Mark.” Johnny replied immediately, as if it were the easiest reply in the whole world. 

Mark blinked, momentarily at a loss for words. Then he cleared his throat awkwardly. “Yuta and Hansol. That was a case of…”

“Not having enough information,” Johnny’s eyes turned sad in a heartbeat. “Some things were unexpected, but...well, that’s not my story to tell.”

Mark hummed in understanding, following Johnny’s eyes to a break in the clouds where yellow rays sprinkled diamonds in the waves. “And this conversation couldn’t wait till I was awake because?”

Johnny met Mark’s eyes, his own twinkling with good humour. “Oh, you can answer that yourself, Mark. You’ve done enough jabbering that I know what you’ve written on that document of yours so far.”

“A space that allows one to break the limits of reality,” Mark smiled back, fragile, hopeful. He surreptitiously brought a hand up to wipe the tears from his eyes. “Communication barriers, emotional barriers, of ourselves and others. Liminal.”

“Attaboy.” Johnny high-fived Mark, wrapping and arm around his shoulder. Together they stood there, watching the waves.

“The dreams seem to be getting shorter. Will I wake soon?”

“In time.”

“What’s going to happen to me? To us?”

“Jaehyun’s been assigned to Donghyuck’s case so rest assured he’s in good hands. For you, if you want to, you can continue with the life you’ve been building all these years.”

Mark blinked back, slightly stunned. “No repercussions? No punishment?”

“For what?” Johnny tilted his head, and somehow Mark understood. 

“Right,” Mark grinned, for real this time, the hollow in his chest beginning to mend little by little. “I’ll see you back in the real world, then.”

\---

Mark woke up on a Tuesday morning.

He groaned, turning to the side, shaking of sleep from his aching muscles. His right hand came up to his face as he felt the bandages around his head. In his left hand, a dull pain from the IV drip.

“Sicheng! Jaehyun! He’s awake!” It sounded like Jungwoo.

Everyone around him was talking all at once and Mark just blinked, disoriented. Then Sicheng’s voice, breaking through the rabble, “Let’s get these bandages off, alright?”

Mark nodded.

He leaned forward slightly as a pair of hands unclasped something from the side of his head. Slowly, the pressure was released as the bandages were unwound. When the last of it fell from his head, Mark carefully cracked an eye open.

“How is it? What can you see?”

Mark blinked. He shook his head and blinked a few more times. He could see his body lying on the white bed. It was bright in the room, and there were three figures standing around his bed. But the edges were blurry and unfocused. He squinted.

Sicheng pushed something thin and metallic into Mark’s hands. “These are from Ten, try them on.”

Glasses, Mark decided as he brought them closer to his face for inspection. They had thin, gold metal frames, big and round lenses. He put them on, and Jaehyun, Jungwoo, and Sicheng came into focus.

Sicheng - an opthamologist surgeon by training, Mark recalled - scribbled something down in the clipboard he carried, checking his vitals in the machines next to the bed. Jungwoo looked like he had come fresh from the cafe, wearing one of his white sweaters as he murmured softly to Jaehyun.

And Jaehyun, Jaehyun looked awful. His hair stuck up all over the place and the bags under his eyes were deep and dark. He looked like he hadn’t shaved for a few days, and his t-shirt was rumpled underneath his cardigan. 

Mark felt a stab of guilt. “H-” he swallowed in an attempt to lubricate his throat, voice a rasp, “how long?”

“About two weeks,” Jungwoo replied, hand squeezing Jaehyun’s shoulder. “We took turns coming to see you.”

The young Sandman looked down at his hands. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s alright.” Jaehyun finally spoke, reaching out to stroke Mark’s hair behind his ears. It had gotten a little too long with the ends ticking his neck. “Feeling alright?”

Mark met Jaehyun’s eyes, and found them without condemnation nor anger but relief and love. He looked from Sicheng, nodding approvingly at the numbers on the screen, to Jungwoo, and thought about how Ten had probably made the glasses himself. He thought briefly about Taeyong and Johnny too, coming in the night to speak to him through the sand. Then his mind drifted, inevitably, to Donghyuck, now living with his mother, attending school, safe in Jaehyun’s meticulous care. He thought of all the events that had led up to this moment, and all the other paths that could have been.

“Yeah,” he said, surprised at how sincerely he meant it, “I am.”

\---

Four days later, Mark was allowed to return home.

“I want to monitor you for another two weeks before you actually go back to work,” Sicheng had said, “just to make sure the sand pathway to your tear ducts have closed back properly after having been forced open under extreme stress.”

Scarring had been the result of that. Mark pushed his new glasses up his nose a little self-consciously.

“We can always get contact lenses,” Jaehyun had offered. “That’s what Hansol wears.”

But Mark had shook his head. “I’m scared,” he confessed. “That I’ll forget what happened. And I promised, hyung, I think I did. To remember him. Besides, Ten made these himself, I think he’d be sad if I didn’t use them.”

Jaehyun had nodded, a far-off look in his eyes. “I understand.”

When they had crossed the threshold and into the apartment Mark had immediately been tackled into a hug by Yukhei. “I was so worried, Mark-ah,” he sobbed into the younger’s shoulder. “And Jaehyun hyung was never home, he was always by your side, and I wanted to be there too.”

Mark had cried a little then. Jaehyun and Kun had joined the hug, and they had stood there for a long time.

When they eventually broke apart, Mark’s glasses had been all fogged up, a sight which drew a choked laugh from Yukhei. That had sent Mark into laughter, too, as the two older operatives looked fondly on. They had all snuggled up on the couch for the rest of the day, marathoning Ghibli movies until they fell asleep.

Five days after that, Mark went back to the library. He didn’t hesitate before plunging through the glass doors. How long ago it had seemed, the last time he had been there. This time he wasn’t there to check out archives. Instead, he headed straight for the counter.

From behind the computer screen, Yuta looked up. He looked like he hadn’t been getting much sleep, either.

Mark smiled, holding up two cups of iced coffee from carrier bags. Since the incident, Jungwoo had started giving his orders mountains of cream that almost rivalled Yukhei’s. Mark tilted his head towards the doors, bright rays of the early evening sun still shining on the pavement. “Come outside with me for a while?”

Yuta did. Together, the two of them sat at the steps in front of the library, until the sun dipped under the horizon. Once he had started he hadn’t stopped, and Yuta told Mark of all the dreams he had dreamt a long time ago, a young university student alone in a country that wasn’t his own. And as he spoke, Mark listened.

“I’m sorry for that day, I really am,” Yuta finally said. His eyes had been rimmed red for a while now. “I just didn’t want Donghyuck to be like me. But then it happened still, and I was so mad, Mark. So mad. I didn’t think you could do it.”

Mark took a sip of his coffee. “Honestly? Neither did I. I’d probably have done the same if I were you. The day before, Johnny -”

“Johnny,” Yuta’s voice fell flat. “I never could stand looking at him for very long. Let me guess, he told you everything. I wonder how it feels like playing god?”

Mark paused, placing his coffee beside him. Not too long ago he thought that, too. “No, Yuta hyung, most of it I found out for myself, actually. He’s just like us, trying to do some good in this world a step at a time.”

“Uh huh.” But something in Yuta’s tone was softer, more willing to hear what Mark had to say.

“You know I’ve been wondering about this for a while, why...things happened the way they did.” Mark said wryly as he shifted his weight, leaning back on his hands. “I’d say I learned a lot after getting my heart broken.” He watched Yuta’s expression carefully. “But also because I realised I had broken someone else’s heart, too.”

Silence. There was something missing, Mark was certain of it. “What exactly happened that night, hyung?” Mark pressed.

He watched silently as Yuta choked a little on his coffee. He tilted his face up, angled towards the sky but tears still spilled over from his eyes, tracing their way down his cheeks. “You’re right,” Yuta smiled sadly. “That night I...I told him. I told him I hated him.” 

Mark felt his chest constrict, both because Yuta was smiling so brokenly and also because if Donghyuck had told him that, he didn’t know what he would have done, either.

“And now it’s too bloody late for anything,” Yuta continued bitterly. “He’s forgotten everything and I haven’t, and I’m stuck here now and he’s...he’s disappeared.”

He believed his dream to be dead, Mark realised with a start. So he stopped chasing it, even thought it was within his reach if he had just tried again.

“Did - did you mean what you said? About hating him?”

Yuta shook his head. “No. That’s the problem.”

“Then why -”

“I was scared. I was so scared and angry and desperate, I didn’t know what I was saying. Now’s paying the price, I guess. You know, no one said this but I can tell, Taeil wasn’t even supposed to be my mentor.”

Mark was silent for a while as the dots connected. “Hansol was.”

“Yeah. I didn’t realise it at first, actually, but one day I did and the sand stopped listening to me. I’m the irregular here, Mark-ah...and it’s frustrated me even more because I must be the most selfish person to exist, huh? I’ve lost both Hansol and myself. The sand won’t even come, no matter how hard I try.”

“I don’t think so.” Mark chose his next words carefully. “Jaehyun said the sand is tied with the giving of dreams. It’s not a selfish thing hyung, to need to have your own dreams before being able to give them to others.” To give dreams itself was a new dream for many of them, but for Yuta, things had to be mended, first. He reached behind him and dug around in his bag. “Tell you what, I’m going to give you something very important that I think will help with your sand.”

Yuta squinted at the small name card Mark had handed him “What’s this?”

“You’ll know it, trust me. Promise me you’ll try calling them.” Mark checked his watch and muttered under his breath as he started to gather his things.

Something in Mark’s voice must have resonated. “Okay, I’ll give it a try. Where are you going now?”

“Sorry I have to leave so soon, I’ve got to go to Yukhei’s. Kun and Jaehyun said we could do some joint studying even if I don’t have patrol.”

“Mm, sounds nice.” Yuta’s voice was wistful. He rubbed at his neck. “Hey...you and me. Are we alright?”

“Yeah.” Mark fixed his sling bag and turned on the steps to face Yuta. “If you want us to be.”

Yuta smiled, hands gripping tightly to the piece of paper. “I’d like that. Enjoy your study session.”

Mark returned the smile. “Thanks, hyung.”

\---

**Mark's Report - An excerpt:**

_The moment one realises one is in a dream, one enters a state of deeper dreaming. The individual is conscious of the dreaming experience which then enters the larger emotional and rational memory. Waking and sleeping, these alternating realities are combined and pieced together, and reality after the deeper dream is hardly ever the same: One often enters a state to make the dreams come true, or to escape from the reality the dreams offer. _

_In the dream barriers come down, through this we see what we would not have otherwise, be what we would not be otherwise. We are no longer limited by what has happened in reality: anything is possible, in one’s dream. _

\---

**TEN YEARS LATER**

The night was still young when the door to Jungwoo’s cafe was pushed open. Silver bells jingled happily. Mark slid into the seat overlooking the preparation area and scrolled through the news on his phone.

Soon after, a cup of steaming coffee was pushed into his hands. “Still the same order after all these years.”

“What can I say,” Mark sighed as he inhaled the subtle caramel scent. “I’m a creature of habit.”

“Mmhmm. Where’s Jaehyun today? He’s usually on time for your weekly meet-ups.”

“Running late,” Mark replied. “Yuta asked him to drop by to hear the new song. You’ll go crazy when you hear it, it’s so good, but you’ll go even crazier once you see what Hansol’s choreographed for it.”

“Oh yeah? Can we expect another album soon? The last one was really good Mark-ah, I’m so proud of my dongsaeng.” Jungwoo sniffed, puppy-dog eyes in full force as he wiped away fake tears.

Mark snorted. “That’s cause you sang for that one track.”

“It was the best track! C’mon say it, say your hyung has a nice singing voice.”

“Your hyung has a nice singing voice,” Mark parroted cheekily, laughing when Jungwoo harrumphed crossly and threatened to swipe away his precious coffee. 

“You two are an odd pair: Jungwoo’s needier than most and you’re stingier than most.” Jaehyun slid quietly into a seat and waved to Jungwoo. Mark startled and almost fell out of his chair.

_Cute_ Mark heard Jungwoo whisper under his breath as he busied himself with Jaehyun’s order.

“Quit sneaking up on me like that hyung,” whined Mark. 

“Why not? It’s fun.”

“It’s suffering for _me_.”

“Fun,” Jaehyun repeated, winking. “So, how’s things?”

“Ah good! You heard the new song, right? This partnership came at the right time, I believe - with the globalisation of Hallyu more and more kids want performance-related dreams. I had five concerts last night alone, five.”

Jaehyun laughed, full throated and deep. Times like this, Mark almost felt like he’d never graduated, still a young Sandman anxious to make his mentor proud.

An hour later, Mark got up apologetically. “Sorry for leaving early today, hyung. Taeyong hyung called me in to discuss something.”

“Ah, I know what it’s about,” Jaehyun grinned. “No worries, I’ll chat with Jungwoo till I’ve got to go. It’s nothing bad, don’t panic!”

“Will try,” Mark shot Jaehyun a waned smile.

When mark reached Taeyong’s office, he was quickly ushered in. After the formalities, Taeyong got straight into business. “I’ve finally gotten around to taking a look at your research. Kun and I have been discussing something for a while actually, and I’d like to hear what you think about it.”

Mark blinked, having half expected a performance review. “What is it?”

“Johnny’s machine is starting to pick up signals on the next wave of operatives.” And somehow, Mark wasn’t that surprised, not since he had heard mysterious beeping from outside of the labs for the past two days. “We could just add them to 127, true, but I’m of the opinion that 9 or 10 is a good enough size for now.”

“Then where -” Mark quietened down when Taeyong raised up a hand, he wasn’t finished yet.

“On the other hand, children today are growing up faster than ever thanks to technology. It’s a sceptical generation that’s growing up, and we’re thinking of creating a new division to better target them.”

Taeyong observed Mark’s expression as he continued. “This won’t be for a while, of course - it’ll take some time for the next generation to come and be trained - but when it does materialise, we’d like you to lead them.”

Mark could only stare back, stunned.

“So...what do you think?”

The younger operative opened and closed his mouth a few times like a fish out of water. Finally, he managed to choke out a reply. “It - It would be an honour.”

Taeyong smiled, face still youthful after the millenias that had come and gone. “Great, we’ll keep you posted about the incoming operatives. Johnny’s still extracting the data, so keep an eye on your phone some time tonight.”

\---

When Mark opened the door to his apartment after patrol, Yukhei was already home.

“What’s up hyung?” he asked as he made his way to the couch. Despite having moved out, it wasn’t usually too quiet with Yukhei around. Together, they had learned some simple dishes from Kun and could pretty much fend for themselves. The elder Sandman liked to give them tupperwares of banchan or Chinese dishes when he made them, and no one was complaining about that.

Yukhei was sprawled on the couch, staring intently at a video of his phone. He didn’t look up when Mark entered. “Mark, hey.”

Mark nudged Yukhei over. “What’s this you’re watching?”

Yukhei whined as Mark shoved him to the side of the couch, but he sat up anyway, angling the phone screen away from him. 

“You’re early today,” he remarked as he looked at Mark’s curious gaze, conflicted for a moment, then continued. “I found this video and thought you might want to see it too. It’s a few years old but - just, just watch it.”

“Mm, okay,” Mark replied. Yukhei was acting strange. “Is it a long video?”

“Uhm, ten minutes plus?”

“Let’s see it then,” Mark demanded, pulling off his socks and sitting cross legged on the couch. Yukhei rewound the video and leaned his phone against the cactus pot on their living room table. He pressed play.

Yellow, bubbled Korean words flew up in the white background as two figures holding cue cards smiled at the screen. “Welcome back to...Weekly Idol!”

“Ooh, I think I saw EXO on this once,” Mark commented, grabbing a cushion and settling in to watch.

The female host in a red beret continued. “Now let’s move on to the next corner: idol profile. The profile of your favourite idols, written by your favourite idols! Let’s have the leader of NCT, Haechan, to come up first!”

Screaming and cheering. “Yeah, full sun!”

The camera panned out to a line of six smartly-dressed figures sitting on stools, each holding a cardboard as they laughed and cheered, smacking the back of the figure sitting on the right-most seat.

“Full sun, full sun, full sun -”

“Aigoo, I got it guys,” the figure laughed as the camera shifted to his face.

Mark’s jaw fell open as all the air left his lungs because surely it wasn’t, that couldn’t be -

“Real name: Lee Donghyuck!”

The boy - man, really - in front of him was almost unrecognisable. Dressed in a dark green shirt that brought out his golden skin, hair a light brown and swept to the side, form-fitting dress pants and a pair of black Oxfords. But the laugh, the laugh was the same.

“Hes -” Mark felt his throat tighten.

“Hot as heck,” Yukhei breathed beside him. “I know, dude.”

“- healthy.” Mark finished. Yukhei turned and gazed at the younger’s awe-struck expression. “And he looks so happy.”

Donghyuck had grown into his long limbs, his shoulders had broadened and the unnatural pale pallour of his early youth had faded like a distant dream.

“Nickname: full sun, as we’ve been hearing here in Basement 2.”

“It’s because of his sunny personality!” The one with orange hair - Chenle, Mark recognised with a start - piped up. “And when he walks on the streets everyone turns to look at him.”

“Yahhh~ So handsome!” A blond with streak of blue in his fringe and a huge smile. Jaemin.

“Hahaha, his face is turning red.” One of the male hosts in a plaid suit laughed. “Let’s spare the young man and continue - age: 21.”

“Old.” Chenle and a pink haired boy - Jisung? Was it really him? - shrieked and fell on each other in their rush to high-five the other. 

Donghyuck faked a tight smile on his face as he bowed at the cameras. “Apologies to all audiences, these two are currently still going through puberty....you two just wait till we’re back at the dorms…”

“Wah~ just like any parent would say.” The host with the beret joined in the laughter of the group. “But you know many leaders make these empty threats, I’m sure it’s nothing. Aigoo Jeno-yah, stop shaking your head! You’re going to get in trouble too!”

The camera panned to a man with platinum blond hair and eye smiles, who was desperately shaking his head. “Uhh...Let’s continue please.”

“Alright, alright,” the host in the plaid suit smiled indulgently. He turned back to the board. “‘How close are you to members? Special connection to everybody!’ Wow Donghyuck-ssi, would you like to explain?”

Donghyuck scratched the back of his neck. “It’s quite weird actually. Jeno and Jaemin are same-age friends and we were accepted into the agency around the same time.”

“Oh? How old were you?”

“17,” the three replied together, nodding at the host’s incredulous look.

Then Donghyuck continued. “I was in the same class as Chenle in middle school ‘cause I missed a year, and he was friends with Jisung. After I got in they tried out and got in too.”

“And Renjun?”

He let out an embarrassed laugh, rubbing at his nose as he turned around to look at his group member. “Renjun…”

Renjun, Injun. Mark finally had a face to connect with those yellow converse-clad feet.

“When the story came out about the first words you spoke to him, it made headlines for a week! Could you tell the story again for the new viewers?”

“Sure,” Donghyuck laughed. “Renjun and I were neighbours when we were very small, in Jeju.” The one that had to be Renjun nodded. “Then I moved and we lost touch. One day the manager said we had a new trainee our age and brought us to the room and when I saw him I said - I said…”

“He went: ‘So you really started dance class like you told me.’” Jeno interjected.

“It was so weird!” Jaemin cried out. “They had just met in what, ten years -”

“Oh?” Either the host hadn’t actually read the news article or was very good at feigning a surprised face, “but it’s not unreasonable it you had been friends a long time ago -”

“We had lost contact!” Renjun burst out. “I started dancing sometime when I was fourteen, how could he have known?”

The other host nodded, listening. “And we hear you have a special theory?”

Renjun’s face was dead serious. “Yes. The supernatural.”

“And what do your members think of that?”

“We all...think it’s not out of reason,” Jisung looked from member to member and they all nodded. “Honestly we’ve all got a bit of seventh-grade syndrome. Especially Renjun hyung, Haechan hyung, and myself.”

“You never know what’s out there,” Jeno confirmed.

“Wah...you all really are a fated group. Listening to that story never gets old but we have to finish this up and move on soon. Last question, what is NCT to you? ‘A new dream.’”

The members turned to look at Donghyuck with different measures of curiousity, whose cheeks had taken on a light dusting of pink. “This...this one is something quite close to my heart. Being an idol was my second dream, something we shared in that interview where we tracked all our dreams, but I didn’t explain it well then. One day I went downstairs and I saw SHINEE sunbaenim dancing on the television and thought to myself I wanted to be in an MV too, because idols can share their dreams with people all around the world. It’s what carried me through the trainee period and I think it did for all of us.”

“And what was your old dream?”

Pause. “That’s the weird thing, I can’t remember.”

“Eh? You can’t remember?” The hosts stared incredulously. “Aren’t dreams really important?”

“Yeah but it’s like - when you put something somewhere for a moment and it disappears and you suddenly can’t find it again.”

“Right, right,” the lady had her eyebrows scrunched together, trying to make sense of Donghyuck’s words.

Donghyuck laughed, embarrassed. “Ah, maybe I shouldn’t have said this…”

“If it’s important to you then it’s important to all of us,” the other host said kindly as the other members chimed in their approval. “Take your time.”

“I...I think it’s because I had my first dream that’s why I could have my second. I strongly believe that our past experiences, all of them, define who we are today, even the things we lose.” Donghyuck finished quickly.

“Wise words from leader-nim! Let’s give Haechan another round of applause and have the next member up...” The video ended.

“Weird, right?” Yukhei said after a beat of silence.

“Yeah.” Mark’s phone pinged and he brought it out. His eyes widened. “Actually...it might not be so weird after all…”

“What is it?” Yukhei leaned over to see the image Mark had received from Johnny, and his jaws fell slack. “Oh. Oh my goodness.”

\---

**Epilogue: SOME DECADES LATER**

It must have been early evening, the way the shadows of the streetlamps stretched and leaned. Donghyuck breathed out. In the chilly winter air, smoke burst from his lips and dissipated as quickly as it had formed.

Where was he?

He was in the middle of the cross section of a road. In front of him was a tall building reaching into the skies. A library, according to the signage. Around him, the streets were empty.

Behind him the building was sleek grey. Strange clattering sounds seemed to emerge from its depths, and Donghyuck inched a little further away. Something was keeping his feet rooted to the spot though, like he was meant to wait for someone.

He brought his hands up to block off the sun as he squinted around him. Then he squinted at his hands, turning them this way and that. His skin was strangely smooth, supple.

Donghyuck frowned as the sounds of an engine roared past, a dull yellow bus clattering its way down the street. There was no driver. 

“ - not going to be late meeting my grandmentee,” a hissed voice floated from across the street. A man in a suit with slicked back brown hair had his back facing Donghyuck. It looked a little like he was hiding. “Yukhei got his foot stuck in the faucet? How’d that even happen?”

Sputtering noises seemed to come from the phone and the man held it a little way from his ear before bringing it close again. “Well I don’t care, you’ll be here soon right?”

“Hello?” Donghyuck tentatively called out. Across the road, he would have sworn he saw the man jump a little. “You there, in the suit. Could you tell me where I am please?”

The man stood still in silent conflict before shaking his head at the pavement and bounding over to Donghyuck’s side of the road. As he neared Donghyuck could start to make out his features: high cheekbones and a regal nose. 

“Who are you?” he blurted out. The stranger blinked, seeming almost as surprised as Donghyuck did.

“I’m not the person you’re waiting for,” the stranger quickly replied. His voice was rich and deep, familiar but unfamiliar. “He’ll be here soon, trust me -”

“Jaehyun hyung!” A pattering of footsteps and Jaehyun whirled around. “I’m sorry I’m late but Yukhei really did -”

Donghyuck stuck his neck to the side just in time to see a man - about his age, actually - stop short in the street. The stranger opened his mouth to speak but no words came out, and Donghyuck continued to stare, equally speechless.

The stranger’s eyes were wide, deer-like behind rimmed glasses, his bright blond hair tousled from the wind. His chest moved up and down, panting from his run and his voice, his eyes, his _eyes_...

“Hey,” the stranger but not quite smiled shyly, tentatively, at Donghyuck. “It’s been a while, Donghyuck-ah.”

“I’m sorry, but what - what is your name?,” Donghyuck managed. The other man, Jaehyun, watched the exchange with something akin to gentle curiousity.

“Mark,” the stranger - Mark - breathed out. “It’s Mark.”

_Mark._

Donghyuck took a step back as the space in front of his eyes flitted from starry skies to cafes, to playing with sparklers by the beach and surfing in the sea, to hiking down mountain paths and finally, those eyes, those hands, holding his cheek.

And Donghyuck exhaled because oh. _Oh._

“I know it’s all very confusing right now but you’re exactly where you need to be. I’m -” Whatever Mark was going to say was cut off as Donghyuck launched himself into his arms, wrapping them tight around Mark’s neck as if he would never let go.

“I remember you,” he found himself repeating over and over. “ Finally, I remember you.”

Mark’s arms slowly, awkwardly, came up to hug Donghyuck. They quickly tightened as Mark let out a shuddering breath.

“Yeah,” he said simply, a smile seeping into his voice. “Yeah, you do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and here we are, finally at the end!
> 
> a huge, huge thank you to everyone and anyone who has taken the time to read this little story, to those who've left kudos, and to those who've commented! i hope you've enjoyed it as much as i enjoyed worldbuilding :') do let me know what you think!
> 
> yep, the unit taeyong's talking about will be the dreamies! i headcannon that mark and hyuck will be a part of 127 still hmm..
> 
> some extra info:  
\- the song sung in chapter 2 is actually from "Without You"  
\- the song lyrics at the end chapter notes in chapter 4 is from a chinese song 忘情水, which was recommended by lucas, and was what prompted this whole story in the first place :)  
\- white heather flowers in chapter 2 are supposed to symbolise protection! (thanks google)  
\- you might recognise some dream snippets taken from the nctmentary videos ehehe
> 
> a quick guide to who's who in the mentor/mentee system (yukhei's an honourary dreamie, and most have had 2 mentees):  
Johnny --> Taeil --> Hansol --> Yuta (but since Hansol left, Taeil mentored him)  
Johnny --> Taeyong --> Doyoung --> Ten, Jungwoo  
Taeyong --> Jaehyun --> Mark --> Haechan --> Chenle  
Mark --> Jeno  
Kun --> Yukhei --> Renjun  
Jaehyun --> Jaemin --> Jisung


End file.
